Urantia Papers Intro - Paper 15

Information for humanity, Presented by Celestial and Offworld beings

The UrantiaBook(Urantia papers,) was first published by Urantia Foundation in 1955. Thei nformation within theses pages has beenpresented by celestial and offworld being as a revelation to our planet, Urantia ... Urantia means Earth. The teachings contained in The Urantia Book,
when embraced in the hearts and minds of mankind, have the power to
bring to reality the supernal message from the Master: "Peace on earth
and good will among men."

"The religious
challenge of this age is to those farseeing and forward-looking men and
women of spiritual insight who will dare to construct a new and
appealing philosophy of living out of the enlarged and exquisitely
integrated modern concepts of cosmic truth, universe beauty, and divine
goodness."

The Urantia Book

Foreword

(1.1)0:0.1 IN THE MINDS of
the mortals of Urantia — that being the name of your world — there
exists great confusion respecting the meaning of such terms as God,
divinity, and deity. Human beings are still more confused and uncertain
about the relationships of the divine personalities designated by these
numerous appellations. Because of this conceptual poverty associated
with so much ideational confusion, I have been directed to formulate
this introductory statement in explanation of the meanings which should
be attached to certain word symbols as they may be hereinafter used in
those papers which the Orvonton corps of truth revealers have been
authorized to translate into the English language of Urantia.(1.2)0:0.2 It is
exceedingly difficult to present enlarged concepts and advanced truth,
in our endeavor to expand cosmic consciousness and enhance spiritual
perception, when we are restricted to the use of a circumscribed
language of the realm. But our mandate admonishes us to make every
effort to convey our meanings by using the word symbols of the English
tongue. We have been instructed to introduce new terms only when the
concept to be portrayed finds no terminology in English which can be
employed to convey such a new concept partially or even with more or
less distortion of meaning.(1.3)0:0.3 In the hope of
facilitating comprehension and of preventing confusion on the part of
every mortal who may peruse these papers, we deem it wise to present in
this initial statement an outline of the meanings to be attached to
numerous English words which are to be employed in designation of Deity
and certain associated concepts of the things, meanings, and values of
universal reality.(1.4)0:0.4 But in order to
formulate this Foreword of definitions and limitations of terminology,
it is necessary to anticipate the usage of these terms in the subsequent
presentations. This Foreword is not, therefore, a finished statement
within itself; it is only a definitive guide designed to assist those
who shall read the accompanying papers dealing with Deity and the
universe of universes which have been formulated by an Orvonton
commission sent to Urantia for this purpose.(1.5)0:0.5 Your world, Urantia, is one of many similar inhabited planets which comprise the local universe of Nebadon. This universe, together with similar creations, makes up the superuniverse of Orvonton,
from whose capital, Uversa, our commission hails. Orvonton is one of
the seven evolutionary superuniverses of time and space which circle the
never-beginning, never-ending creation of divine perfection — the
central universe of Havona. At the heart of this eternal and
central universe is the stationary Isle of Paradise, the geographic
center of infinity and the dwelling place of the eternal God.(1.6)0:0.6 The seven evolving superuniverses in association with the central and divine universe, we commonly refer to as the grand universe; these are the now organized and inhabited creations. They are all a part of the master universe, which also embraces the uninhabited but mobilizing universes of outer space.

I. Deity and Divinity

(2.1)0:1.1 The universe of
universes presents phenomena of deity activities on diverse levels of
cosmic realities, mind meanings, and spirit values, but all of these
ministrations — personal or otherwise — are divinely co-ordinated.(2.2)0:1.2 DEITY is
personalizable as God, is prepersonal and superpersonal in ways not
altogether comprehensible by man. Deity is characterized by the quality
of unity — actual or potential — on all supermaterial levels of reality;
and this unifying quality is best comprehended by creatures as
divinity.(2.3)0:1.3 Deity functions on personal, prepersonal, and superpersonal levels. Total Deity is functional on the following seven levels:

(2.4)0:1.4 1. Static — self-contained and self-existent Deity.(2.5)0:1.5 2. Potential — self-willed and self-purposive Deity.(2.6)0:1.6 3. Associative — self-personalized and divinely fraternal Deity.(2.7)0:1.7 4. Creative — self-distributive and divinely revealed Deity.(2.8)0:1.8 5. Evolutional — self-expansive and creature-identified Deity.(2.9)0:1.9 6. Supreme —
self-experiential and creature-Creator-unifying Deity. Deity
functioning on the first creature-identificational level as time-space
overcontrollers of the grand universe, sometimes designated the
Supremacy of Deity.(2.10)0:1.10 7. Ultimate —
self-projected and time-space-transcending Deity. Deity omnipotent,
omniscient, and omnipresent. Deity functioning on the second level of
unifying divinity expression as effective overcontrollers and absonite
upholders of the master universe. As compared with the ministry of the
Deities to the grand universe, this absonite function in the master
universe is tantamount to universal overcontrol and supersustenance,
sometimes called the Ultimacy of Deity.

(2.11)0:1.11The finite level
of reality is characterized by creature life and time-space
limitations. Finite realities may not have endings, but they always have
beginnings — they are created. The Deity level of Supremacy may be
conceived as a function in relation to finite existences.(2.12)0:1.12The absonite level
of reality is characterized by things and beings without beginnings or
endings and by the transcendence of time and space. Absoniters are not
created; they are eventuated — they simply are. The Deity level of
Ultimacy connotes a function in relation to absonite realities. No
matter in what part of the master universe, whenever time and space are
transcended, such an absonite phenomenon is an act of the Ultimacy of
Deity.(2.13)0:1.13The absolute level
is beginningless, endless, timeless, and spaceless. For example: On
Paradise, time and space are nonexistent; the time-space status of
Paradise is absolute. This level is Trinity attained, existentially, by
the Paradise Deities, but this third level of unifying Deity expression
is not fully unified experientially. Whenever, wherever, and however the
absolute level of Deity functions, Paradise-absolute values and
meanings are manifest.(3.1)0:1.14 Deity may be
existential, as in the Eternal Son; experiential, as in the Supreme
Being; associative, as in God the Sevenfold; undivided, as in the
Paradise Trinity.(3.2)0:1.15 Deity is the
source of all that which is divine. Deity is characteristically and
invariably divine, but all that which is divine is not necessarily
Deity, though it will be co-ordinated with Deity and will tend towards
some phase of unity with Deity — spiritual, mindal, or personal.(3.3)0:1.16 DIVINITY is the characteristic, unifying, and co-ordinating quality of Deity.(3.4)0:1.17 Divinity is
creature comprehensible as truth, beauty, and goodness; correlated in
personality as love, mercy, and ministry; disclosed on impersonal levels
as justice, power, and sovereignty.(3.5)0:1.18 Divinity may
be perfect — complete — as on existential and creator levels of Paradise
perfection; it may be imperfect, as on experiential and creature levels
of time-space evolution; or it may be relative, neither perfect nor
imperfect, as on certain Havona levels of existential-experiential
relationships.(3.6)0:1.19 When we attempt to conceive of perfection in all phases and forms of relativity, we encounter seven conceivable types:

(3.7)0:1.20 1. Absolute perfection in all aspects.(3.8)0:1.21 2. Absolute perfection in some phases and relative perfection in all other aspects.(3.9)0:1.22 3. Absolute, relative, and imperfect aspects in varied association.(3.10)0:1.23 4. Absolute perfection in some respects, imperfection in all others.(3.11)0:1.24 5. Absolute perfection in no direction, relative perfection in all manifestations.*(3.12)0:1.25 6. Absolute perfection in no phase, relative in some, imperfect in others.(3.13)0:1.26 7. Absolute perfection in no attribute, imperfection in all.

II. God

(3.14)0:2.1 Evolving
mortal creatures experience an irresistible urge to symbolize their
finite concepts of God. Man’s consciousness of moral duty and his
spiritual idealism represent a value level — an experiential reality —
which is difficult of symbolization.(3.15)0:2.2 Cosmic
consciousness implies the recognition of a First Cause, the one and only
uncaused reality. God, the Universal Father, functions on three
Deity-personality levels of subinfinite value and relative divinity
expression:

(3.16)0:2.3 1. Prepersonal — as in the ministry of the Father fragments, such as the Thought Adjusters.(3.17)0:2.4 2. Personal — as in the evolutionary experience of created and procreated beings.(3.18)0:2.5 3. Superpersonal — as in the eventuated existences of certain absonite and associated beings.

(3.19)0:2.6 GOD is a word
symbol designating all personalizations of Deity. The term requires a
different definition on each personal level of Deity function and must
be still further redefined within each of these levels, as this term may
be used to designate the diverse co-ordinate and subordinate
personalizations of Deity; for example: the Paradise Creator Sons — the
local universe fathers.(4.1)0:2.7 The term God, as we make use of it, may be understood:

(4.2)0:2.8By designation — as God the Father.(4.3)0:2.9By context —
as when used in the discussion of some one deity level or association.
When in doubt as to the exact interpretation of the word God, it would
be advisable to refer it to the person of the Universal Father.

(4.4)0:2.10 The term God always denotes personality. Deity may, or may not, refer to divinity personalities.(4.5)0:2.11 The word GOD is used, in these papers, with the following meanings:

(4.6)0:2.12 1. God the Father — Creator, Controller, and Upholder. The Universal Father, the First Person of Deity.(4.7)0:2.13 2. God the Son — Co-ordinate Creator, Spirit Controller, and Spiritual Administrator. The Eternal Son, the Second Person of Deity.(4.8)0:2.14 3. God the Spirit — Conjoint Actor, Universal Integrator, and Mind Bestower. The Infinite Spirit, the Third Person of Deity.(4.9)0:2.15 4. God the Supreme —
the actualizing or evolving God of time and space. Personal Deity
associatively realizing the time-space experiential achievement of
creature-Creator identity. The Supreme Being is personally experiencing
the achievement of Deity unity as the evolving and experiential God of
the evolutionary creatures of time and space.(4.10)0:2.16 5. God the Sevenfold —
Deity personality anywhere actually functioning in time and space. The
personal Paradise Deities and their creative associates functioning in
and beyond the borders of the central universe and power-personalizing
as the Supreme Being on the first creature level of unifying Deity
revelation in time and space. This level, the grand universe, is the
sphere of the time-space descension of Paradise personalities in
reciprocal association with the time-space ascension of evolutionary
creatures.(4.11)0:2.17 6. God the Ultimate —
the eventuating God of supertime and transcended space. The second
experiential level of unifying Deity manifestation. God the Ultimate
implies the attained realization of the synthesized
absonite-superpersonal, time-space-transcended, and
eventuated-experiential values, co-ordinated on final creative levels of
Deity reality.(4.12)0:2.18 7. God the Absolute — the experientializing God of transcended superpersonal values and divinity meanings, now existential as the Deity Absolute.
This is the third level of unifying Deity expression and expansion. On
this supercreative level, Deity experiences exhaustion of personalizable
potential, encounters completion of divinity, and undergoes depletion
of capacity for self-revelation to successive and progressive levels of
other-personalization. Deity now encounters, impinges upon, and
experiences identity with, the Unqualified Absolute.

III. The First Source and Center

(5.1)0:3.2 1. The First Source and Center.(5.2)0:3.3 2. The Second Source and Center.(5.3)0:3.4 3. The Third Source and Center.(5.4)0:3.5 4. The Isle of Paradise.(5.5)0:3.6 5. The Deity Absolute.(5.6)0:3.7 6. The Universal Absolute.(5.7)0:3.8 7. The Unqualified Absolute.

(5.8)0:3.9 God, as the
First Source and Center, is primal in relation to total reality —
unqualifiedly. The First Source and Center is infinite as well as
eternal and is therefore limited or conditioned only by volition.(5.9)0:3.10 God — the
Universal Father — is the personality of the First Source and Center and
as such maintains personal relations of infinite control over all
co-ordinate and subordinate sources and centers. Such control is
personal and infinite in potential, even though it may never
actually function owing to the perfection of the function of such
co-ordinate and subordinate sources and centers and personalities.(5.10)0:3.11 The First
Source and Center is, therefore, primal in all domains: deified or
undeified, personal or impersonal, actual or potential, finite or
infinite. No thing or being, no relativity or finality, exists except in
direct or indirect relation to, and dependence on, the primacy of the
First Source and Center.(5.11)0:3.12The First Source and Center is related to the universe as:

(5.12)0:3.13 1. The
gravity forces of the material universes are convergent in the gravity
center of nether Paradise. That is just why the geographic location of
his person is eternally fixed in absolute relation to the force-energy
center of the nether or material plane of Paradise. But the absolute
personality of Deity exists on the upper or spiritual plane of Paradise.(5.13)0:3.14 2. The mind
forces are convergent in the Infinite Spirit; the differential and
divergent cosmic mind in the Seven Master Spirits; the factualizing mind
of the Supreme as a time-space experience in Majeston.(5.14)0:3.15 3. The universe spirit forces are convergent in the Eternal Son.(5.15)0:3.16 4. The unlimited capacity for deity action resides in the Deity Absolute.(5.16)0:3.17 5. The unlimited capacity for infinity response exists in the Unqualified Absolute.(5.17)0:3.18 6. The two Absolutes — Qualified and Unqualified — are co-ordinated and unified in and by the Universal Absolute.(5.18)0:3.19 7. The
potential personality of an evolutionary moral being or of any other
moral being is centered in the personality of the Universal Father.

(5.19)0:3.20 REALITY, as
comprehended by finite beings, is partial, relative, and shadowy. The
maximum Deity reality fully comprehensible by evolutionary finite
creatures is embraced within the Supreme Being. Nevertheless there are
antecedent and eternal realities, superfinite realities, which are
ancestral to this Supreme Deity of evolutionary time-space creatures. In
attempting to portray the origin and nature of universal reality, we
are forced to employ the technique of time-space reasoning in order to
reach the level of the finite mind. Therefore must many of the
simultaneous events of eternity be presented as sequential transactions.(6.1)0:3.21 As a
time-space creature would view the origin and differentiation of
Reality, the eternal and infinite I AM achieved Deity liberation from
the fetters of unqualified infinity through the exercise of inherent and
eternal free will, and this divorcement from unqualified infinity
produced the first absolute divinity-tension. This tension of
infinity differential is resolved by the Universal Absolute, which
functions to unify and co-ordinate the dynamic infinity of Total Deity
and the static infinity of the Unqualified Absolute.(6.2)0:3.22 In this
original transaction the theoretical I AM achieved the realization of
personality by becoming the Eternal Father of the Original Son
simultaneously with becoming the Eternal Source of the Isle of Paradise.
Coexistent with the differentiation of the Son from the Father, and in
the presence of Paradise, there appeared the person of the Infinite
Spirit and the central universe of Havona. With the appearance of
coexistent personal Deity, the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit, the
Father escaped, as a personality, from otherwise inevitable diffusion
throughout the potential of Total Deity. Thenceforth it is only in
Trinity association with his two Deity equals that the Father fills all
Deity potential, while increasingly experiential Deity is being
actualized on the divinity levels of Supremacy, Ultimacy, and
Absoluteness.(6.3)0:3.23The concept of the I AM
is a philosophic concession which we make to the time-bound,
space-fettered, finite mind of man, to the impossibility of creature
comprehension of eternity existences — nonbeginning, nonending realities
and relationships. To the time-space creature, all things must have a
beginning save only the ONE UNCAUSED — the primeval cause of causes.
Therefore do we conceptualize this philosophic value-level as the I AM,
at the same time instructing all creatures that the Eternal Son and the
Infinite Spirit are coeternal with the I AM; in other words, that there
never was a time when the I AM was not the Father of the Son and, with him, of the Spirit.(6.4)0:3.24The Infinite is used to denote the fullness — the finality — implied by the primacy of the First Source and Center. The theoretical I AM is a creature-philosophic extension of the “infinity of will,” but the Infinite is an actual
value-level representing the eternity-intension of the true infinity of
the absolute and unfettered free will of the Universal Father. This
concept is sometimes designated the Father-Infinite.(6.5)0:3.25 Much of the
confusion of all orders of beings, high and low, in their efforts to
discover the Father-Infinite, is inherent in their limitations of
comprehension. The absolute primacy of the Universal Father is not
apparent on subinfinite levels; therefore is it probable that only the
Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit truly know the Father as an
infinity; to all other personalities such a concept represents the
exercise of faith.

IV. Universe Reality

(6.6)0:4.1 Reality
differentially actualizes on diverse universe levels; reality originates
in and by the infinite volition of the Universal Father and is
realizable in three primal phases on many different levels of universe
actualization:

(6.7)0:4.2 1. Undeified reality
ranges from the energy domains of the nonpersonal to the reality realms
of the nonpersonalizable values of universal existence, even to the
presence of the Unqualified Absolute.(7.1)0:4.3 2. Deified reality embraces all infinite Deity potentials
ranging upward through all realms of personality from the lowest finite
to the highest infinite, thus encompassing the domain of all that which
is personalizable and more — even to the presence of the Deity
Absolute.*(7.2)0:4.4 3. Interassociated reality.
Universe reality is supposedly either deified or undeified, but to
subdeified beings there exists a vast domain of interassociated reality,
potential and actualizing, which is difficult of identification. Much
of this co-ordinate reality is embraced within the realms of the
Universal Absolute.

(7.3)0:4.5 This is the primal concept of original reality: The Father initiates and maintains Reality. The primal differentials of reality are the deified and the undeified — the Deity Absolute and the Unqualified Absolute. The primal relationship
is the tension between them. This Father-initiated divinity-tension is
perfectly resolved by, and eternalizes as, the Universal Absolute.(7.4)0:4.6 From the viewpoint of time and space, reality is further divisible as:

(7.5)0:4.7 1. Actual and Potential.
Realities existing in fullness of expression in contrast to those which
carry undisclosed capacity for growth. The Eternal Son is an absolute
spiritual actuality; mortal man is very largely an unrealized spiritual
potentiality.(7.6)0:4.8 2. Absolute and Subabsolute.
Absolute realities are eternity existences. Subabsolute realities are
projected on two levels: Absonites — realities which are relative with
respect to both time and eternity. Finites — realities which are
projected in space and are actualized in time.(7.7)0:4.9 3. Existential and Experiential. Paradise Deity is existential, but the emerging Supreme and Ultimate are experiential.(7.8)0:4.10 4. Personal and Impersonal.
Deity expansion, personality expression, and universe evolution are
forever conditioned by the Father’s freewill act which forever separated
the mind-spirit-personal meanings and values of actuality and
potentiality centering in the Eternal Son from those things which center
and inhere in the eternal Isle of Paradise.

(7.9)0:4.11 PARADISE is a
term inclusive of the personal and the nonpersonal focal Absolutes of
all phases of universe reality. Paradise, properly qualified, may
connote any and all forms of reality, Deity, divinity, personality, and
energy — spiritual, mindal, or material. All share Paradise as the place
of origin, function, and destiny, as regards values, meanings, and
factual existence.(7.10)0:4.12The Isle of Paradise —
Paradise not otherwise qualified — is the Absolute of the
material-gravity control of the First Source and Center. Paradise is
motionless, being the only stationary thing in the universe of
universes. The Isle of Paradise has a universe location but no position
in space. This eternal Isle is the actual source of the physical
universes — past, present, and future. The nuclear Isle of Light is a
Deity derivative, but it is hardly Deity; neither are the material
creations a part of Deity; they are a consequence.(7.11)0:4.13 Paradise is
not a creator; it is a unique controller of many universe activities,
far more of a controller than a reactor. Throughout the material
universes Paradise influences the reactions and conduct of all beings
having to do with force, energy, and power, but Paradise itself is
unique, exclusive, and isolated in the universes. Paradise represents
nothing and nothing represents Paradise. It is neither a force nor a
presence; it is just Paradise.

V. Personality Realities

(8.1)0:5.1 Personality is a
level of deified reality and ranges from the mortal and midwayer level
of the higher mind activation of worship and wisdom up through the
morontial and spiritual to the attainment of finality of personality
status. That is the evolutionary ascent of mortal- and kindred-creature
personality, but there are numerous other orders of universe
personalities.(8.2)0:5.2 Reality is
subject to universal expansion, personality to infinite diversification,
and both are capable of well-nigh unlimited Deity co-ordination and
eternal stabilization. While the metamorphic range of nonpersonal
reality is definitely limited, we know of no limitations to the
progressive evolution of personality realities.(8.3)0:5.3 On attained
experiential levels all personality orders or values are associable and
even cocreational. Even God and man can coexist in a unified
personality, as is so exquisitely demonstrated in the present status of
Christ Michael — Son of Man and Son of God.(8.4)0:5.4 All subinfinite
orders and phases of personality are associative attainables and are
potentially cocreational. The prepersonal, the personal, and the
superpersonal are all linked together by mutual potential of co-ordinate
attainment, progressive achievement, and cocreational capacity. But
never does the impersonal directly transmute to the personal.
Personality is never spontaneous; it is the gift of the Paradise Father.
Personality is superimposed upon energy, and it is associated only with
living energy systems; identity can be associated with nonliving energy
patterns.(8.5)0:5.5 The Universal
Father is the secret of the reality of personality, the bestowal of
personality, and the destiny of personality. The Eternal Son is the
absolute personality, the secret of spiritual energy, morontia spirits,
and perfected spirits. The Conjoint Actor is the spirit-mind
personality, the source of intelligence, reason, and the universal mind.
But the Isle of Paradise is nonpersonal and extraspiritual, being the
essence of the universal body, the source and center of physical matter,
and the absolute master pattern of universal material reality.(8.6)0:5.6 These qualities of universal reality are manifest in Urantian human experience on the following levels:

(8.7)0:5.7 1. Body. The material or physical organism of man. The living electrochemical mechanism of animal nature and origin.(8.8)0:5.8 2. Mind.
The thinking, perceiving, and feeling mechanism of the human organism.
The total conscious and unconscious experience. The intelligence
associated with the emotional life reaching upward through worship and
wisdom to the spirit level.(8.9)0:5.9 3. Spirit.
The divine spirit that indwells the mind of man — the Thought Adjuster.
This immortal spirit is prepersonal — not a personality, though
destined to become a part of the personality of the surviving mortal
creature.(8.10)0:5.10 4. Soul.
The soul of man is an experiential acquirement. As a mortal creature
chooses to “do the will of the Father in heaven,” so the indwelling
spirit becomes the father of a new reality in human experience.
The mortal and material mind is the mother of this same emerging
reality. The substance of this new reality is neither material nor
spiritual — it is morontial. This is the emerging and immortal soul which is destined to survive mortal death and begin the Paradise ascension.(9.1)0:5.11Personality.
The personality of mortal man is neither body, mind, nor spirit;
neither is it the soul. Personality is the one changeless reality in an
otherwise ever-changing creature experience; and it unifies all other
associated factors of individuality. The personality is the unique
bestowal which the Universal Father makes upon the living and associated
energies of matter, mind, and spirit, and which survives with the
survival of the morontial soul.

(9.2)0:5.12Morontia
is a term designating a vast level intervening between the material and
the spiritual. It may designate personal or impersonal realities,
living or nonliving energies. The warp of morontia is spiritual; its
woof is physical.

VI. Energy and Pattern

(9.3)0:6.1 Any and all
things responding to the personality circuit of the Father, we call
personal. Any and all things responding to the spirit circuit of the
Son, we call spirit. Any and all that responds to the mind circuit of
the Conjoint Actor, we call mind, mind as an attribute of the Infinite
Spirit — mind in all its phases. Any and all that responds to the
material-gravity circuit centering in nether Paradise, we call matter —
energy-matter in all its metamorphic states.(9.4)0:6.2 ENERGY we use as an all-inclusive term applied to spiritual, mindal, and material realms. Force is also thus broadly used. Power
is ordinarily limited to the designation of the electronic level of
material or linear-gravity-responsive matter in the grand universe.
Power is also employed to designate sovereignty. We cannot follow your
generally accepted definitions of force, energy, and power. There is
such paucity of language that we must assign multiple meanings to these
terms.(9.5)0:6.3Physical energy is a term denoting all phases and forms of phenomenal motion, action, and potential.(9.6)0:6.4 In discussing
physical-energy manifestations, we generally use the terms cosmic force,
emergent energy, and universe power. These are often employed as
follows:

(9.7)0:6.5 1. Cosmic force embraces all energies deriving from the Unqualified Absolute but which are as yet unresponsive to Paradise gravity.(9.8)0:6.6 2. Emergent energy
embraces those energies which are responsive to Paradise gravity but
are as yet unresponsive to local or linear gravity. This is the
pre-electronic level of energy-matter.(9.9)0:6.7 3. Universe power
includes all forms of energy which, while still responding to Paradise
gravity, are directly responsive to linear gravity. This is the
electronic level of energy-matter and all subsequent evolutions thereof.

(9.10)0:6.8Mind is a phenomenon connoting the presence-activity of living ministry
in addition to varied energy systems; and this is true on all levels of
intelligence. In personality, mind ever intervenes between spirit and
matter; therefore is the universe illuminated by three kinds of light:
material light, intellectual insight, and spirit luminosity.(10.1)0:6.9Light —
spirit luminosity — is a word symbol, a figure of speech, which
connotes the personality manifestation characteristic of spirit beings
of diverse orders. This luminous emanation is in no respect related
either to intellectual insight or to physical-light manifestations.(10.2)0:6.10 PATTERN can
be projected as material, spiritual, or mindal, or any combination of
these energies. It can pervade personalities, identities, entities, or
nonliving matter. But pattern is pattern and remains pattern; only copies are multiplied.(10.3)0:6.11 Pattern may
configure energy, but it does not control it. Gravity is the sole
control of energy-matter. Neither space nor pattern are gravity
responsive, but there is no relationship between space and pattern;
space is neither pattern nor potential pattern. Pattern is a
configuration of reality which has already paid all gravity debt; the reality of any pattern consists of its energies, its mind, spirit, or material components.(10.4)0:6.12 In contrast to the aspect of the total, pattern discloses the individual
aspect of energy and of personality. Personality or identity forms are
patterns resultant from energy (physical, spiritual, or mindal) but are
not inherent therein. That quality of energy or of personality by virtue
of which pattern is caused to appear may be attributed to God — Deity —
to Paradise force endowment, to the coexistence of personality and
power.(10.5)0:6.13 Pattern is a
master design from which copies are made. Eternal Paradise is the
absolute of patterns; the Eternal Son is the pattern personality; the
Universal Father is the direct ancestor-source of both. But Paradise
does not bestow pattern, and the Son cannot bestow personality.

VII. The Supreme Being

(10.6)0:7.1 The Deity
mechanism of the master universe is twofold as concerns eternity
relationships. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit are
eternal — are existential beings — while God the Supreme, God the
Ultimate, and God the Absolute are actualizing Deity
personalities of the post-Havona epochs in the time-space and the
time-space-transcended spheres of master universe evolutionary
expansion. These actualizing Deity personalities are future eternals
from the time when, and as, they power-personalize in the growing
universes by the technique of the experiential actualization of the
associative-creative potentials of the eternal Paradise Deities.(10.7)0:7.2 Deity is, therefore, dual in presence:

(10.10)0:7.5 The Father,
Son, and Spirit are existential — existential in actuality (though all
potentials are supposedly experiential). The Supreme and the Ultimate
are wholly experiential. The Deity Absolute is experiential in
actualization but existential in potentiality. The essence of Deity is
eternal, but only the three original persons of Deity are unqualifiedly
eternal. All other Deity personalities have an origin, but they are
eternal in destiny.(10.11)0:7.6 Having
achieved existential Deity expression of himself in the Son and the
Spirit, the Father is now achieving experiential expression on hitherto
impersonal and unrevealed deity levels as God the Supreme, God the
Ultimate, and God the Absolute; but these experiential Deities are not
now fully existent; they are in process of actualization.(11.1)0:7.7God the Supreme
in Havona is the personal spirit reflection of the triune Paradise
Deity. This associative Deity relationship is now creatively expanding
outward in God the Sevenfold and is synthesizing in the experiential
power of the Almighty Supreme in the grand universe. Paradise Deity,
existential as three persons, is thus experientially evolving in two
phases of Supremacy, while these dual phases are power-personality
unifying as one Lord, the Supreme Being.(11.2)0:7.8 The Universal
Father achieves freewill liberation from the bonds of infinity and the
fetters of eternity by the technique of trinitization, threefold Deity
personalization. The Supreme Being is even now evolving as a subeternal
personality unification of the sevenfold manifestation of Deity in the
time-space segments of the grand universe.(11.3)0:7.9The Supreme Being
is not a direct creator, except that he is the father of Majeston, but
he is a synthetic co-ordinator of all creature-Creator universe
activities. The Supreme Being, now actualizing in the evolutionary
universes, is the Deity correlator and synthesizer of time-space
divinity, of triune Paradise Deity in experiential association with the
Supreme Creators of time and space. When finally actualized, this
evolutionary Deity will constitute the eternal fusion of the finite and
the infinite — the everlasting and indissoluble union of experiential
power and spirit personality.(11.4)0:7.10 All
time-space finite reality, under the directive urge of the evolving
Supreme Being, is engaged in an ever-ascending mobilization and
perfecting unification (power-personality synthesis) of all phases and
values of finite reality, in association with varied phases of Paradise
reality, to the end and for the purpose of subsequently embarking upon
the attempt to reach absonite levels of supercreature attainment.

VIII. God the Sevenfold

(11.5)0:8.1 To atone for
finity of status and to compensate for creature limitations of concept,
the Universal Father has established the evolutionary creature’s
sevenfold approach to Deity:

(11.13)0:8.9 This
sevenfold Deity personalization in time and space and to the seven
superuniverses enables mortal man to attain the presence of God, who is
spirit. This sevenfold Deity, to finite time-space creatures sometime
power-personalizing in the Supreme Being, is the functional Deity of the
mortal evolutionary creatures of the Paradise-ascension career. Such an
experiential discovery-career of the realization of God begins with the
recognition of the divinity of the Creator Son of the local universe
and ascends through the superuniverse Ancients of Days and by way of the
person of one of the Seven Master Spirits to the attainment of the
discovery and recognition of the divine personality of the Universal
Father on Paradise.(12.1)0:8.10 The grand
universe is the threefold Deity domain of the Trinity of Supremacy, God
the Sevenfold, and the Supreme Being. God the Supreme is potential in
the Paradise Trinity, from whom he derives his personality and spirit
attributes; but he is now actualizing in the Creator Sons, Ancients of
Days, and the Master Spirits, from whom he derives his power as Almighty
to the superuniverses of time and space. This power manifestation of
the immediate God of evolutionary creatures actually time-space evolves
concomitantly with them. The Almighty Supreme, evolving on the
value-level of nonpersonal activities, and the spirit person of God the
Supreme are one reality — the Supreme Being.(12.2)0:8.11 The Creator
Sons in the Deity association of God the Sevenfold provide the mechanism
whereby the mortal becomes immortal and the finite attains the embrace
of the infinite. The Supreme Being provides the technique for the
power-personality mobilization, the divine synthesis, of all
these manifold transactions, thus enabling the finite to attain the
absonite and, through other possible future actualizations, to attempt
the attainment of the Ultimate. The Creator Sons and their associated
Divine Ministers are participants in this supreme mobilization, but the
Ancients of Days and the Seven Master Spirits are probably eternally
fixed as permanent administrators in the grand universe.(12.3)0:8.12 The function
of God the Sevenfold dates from the organization of the seven
superuniverses, and it will probably expand in connection with the
future evolution of the creations of outer space. The organization of
these future universes of the primary, secondary, tertiary, and quartan
space levels of progressive evolution will undoubtedly witness the
inauguration of the transcendent and absonite approach to Deity.

IX. God the Ultimate

(12.4)0:9.1 Just as the
Supreme Being progressively evolves from the antecedent divinity
endowment of the encompassed grand universe potential of energy and
personality, so does God the Ultimate eventuate from the potentials of
divinity residing in the transcended time-space domains of the master
universe. The actualization of Ultimate Deity signalizes absonite
unification of the first experiential Trinity and signifies unifying
Deity expansion on the second level of creative self-realization. This
constitutes the personality-power equivalent of the universe
experiential-Deity actualization of Paradise absonite realities on the
eventuating levels of transcended time-space values. The completion of
such an experiential unfoldment is designed to afford ultimate
service-destiny for all time-space creatures who have attained absonite
levels through the completed realization of the Supreme Being and by the
ministry of God the Sevenfold.(12.5)0:9.2God the Ultimate
is designative of personal Deity functioning on the divinity levels of
the absonite and on the universe spheres of supertime and transcended
space. The Ultimate is a supersupreme eventuation of Deity. The Supreme
is the Trinity unification comprehended by finite beings; the Ultimate
is the unification of the Paradise Trinity comprehended by absonite
beings.(13.1)0:9.3 The Universal Father, through the mechanism of evolutionary Deity, is actually engaged in the stupendous and amazing act
of personality focalization and power mobilization, on their respective
universe meaning-levels, of the divine reality values of the finite,
the absonite, and even of the absolute.(13.2)0:9.4 The first
three and past-eternal Deities of Paradise — the Universal Father, the
Eternal Son, and the Infinite Spirit — are, in the eternal future, to be
personality-complemented by the experiential actualization of associate
evolutionary Deities — God the Supreme, God the Ultimate, and possibly
God the Absolute.(13.3)0:9.5 God the
Supreme and God the Ultimate, now evolving in the experiential
universes, are not existential — not past eternals, only future
eternals, time-space-conditioned and transcendental-conditioned
eternals. They are Deities of supreme, ultimate, and possibly
supreme-ultimate endowments, but they have experienced historic universe
origins. They will never have an end, but they do have personality
beginnings. They are indeed actualizations of eternal and infinite Deity
potentials, but they themselves are neither unqualifiedly eternal nor
infinite.

X. God the Absolute

(13.4)0:10.1 There are many features of the eternal reality of the Deity Absolute which cannot be fully explained to the time-space finite mind, but the actualization of God the Absolute
would be in consequence of the unification of the second experiential
Trinity, the Absolute Trinity. This would constitute the experiential
realization of absolute divinity, the unification of absolute meanings
on absolute levels; but we are not certain regarding the encompassment
of all absolute values since we have at no time been informed that the
Qualified Absolute is the equivalent of the Infinite. Superultimate
destinies are involved in absolute meanings and infinite spirituality,
and without both of these unachieved realities we cannot establish
absolute values.(13.5)0:10.2 God the
Absolute is the realization-attainment goal of all superabsonite beings,
but the power and personality potential of the Deity Absolute
transcends our concept, and we hesitate to discuss those realities which
are so far removed from experiential actualization.

XI. The Three Absolutes

(13.6)0:11.1 When the
combined thought of the Universal Father and the Eternal Son,
functioning in the God of Action, constituted the creation of the divine
and central universe, the Father followed the expression of his thought
into the word of his Son and the act of their Conjoint Executive by
differentiating his Havona presence from the potentials of infinity. And
these undisclosed infinity potentials remain space concealed in the
Unqualified Absolute and divinely enshrouded in the Deity Absolute,
while these two become one in the functioning of the Universal Absolute,
the unrevealed infinity-unity of the Paradise Father.(13.7)0:11.2 Both potency
of cosmic force and potency of spirit force are in process of
progressive revelation-realization as the enrichment of all reality is
effected by experiential growth and through the correlation of the
experiential with the existential by the Universal Absolute. By virtue
of the equipoising presence of the Universal Absolute, the First Source
and Center realizes extension of experiential power, enjoys
identification with his evolutionary creatures, and achieves expansion
of experiential Deity on the levels of Supremacy, Ultimacy, and
Absoluteness.(14.1)0:11.3 When it is
not possible fully to distinguish the Deity Absolute from the
Unqualified Absolute, their supposedly combined function or co-ordinated
presence is designated the action of the Universal Absolute.(14.2)0:11.4 1. The Deity Absolute
seems to be the all-powerful activator, while the Unqualified Absolute
appears to be the all-efficient mechanizer of the supremely unified and
ultimately co-ordinated universe of universes, even universes upon
universes, made, making, and yet to be made.(14.3)0:11.5 The Deity
Absolute cannot, or at least does not, react to any universe situation
in a subabsolute manner. Every response of this Absolute to any given
situation appears to be made in terms of the welfare of the whole
creation of things and beings, not only in its present state of
existence, but also in view of the infinite possibilities of all future
eternity.(14.4)0:11.6 The Deity
Absolute is that potential which was segregated from total, infinite
reality by the freewill choice of the Universal Father, and within which
all divinity activities — existential and experiential — take place.
This is the Qualified Absolute in contradistinction to the Unqualified Absolute; but the Universal Absolute is superadditive to both in the encompassment of all absolute potential.(14.5)0:11.7 2. The Unqualified Absolute
is nonpersonal, extradivine, and undeified. The Unqualified Absolute is
therefore devoid of personality, divinity, and all creator
prerogatives. Neither fact nor truth, experience nor revelation,
philosophy nor absonity are able to penetrate the nature and character
of this Absolute without universe qualification.(14.6)0:11.8 Let it be made clear that the Unqualified Absolute is a positive reality
pervading the grand universe and, apparently, extending with equal
space presence on out into the force activities and prematerial
evolutions of the staggering stretches of the space regions beyond the
seven superuniverses. The Unqualified Absolute is not a mere negativism
of philosophic concept predicated on the assumptions of metaphysical
sophistries concerning the universality, dominance, and primacy of the
unconditioned and the unqualified. The Unqualified Absolute is a
positive universe overcontrol in infinity; this overcontrol is
space-force unlimited but is definitely conditioned by the presence of
life, mind, spirit, and personality, and is further conditioned by the
will-reactions and purposeful mandates of the Paradise Trinity.(14.7)0:11.9 We are
convinced that the Unqualified Absolute is not an undifferentiated and
all-pervading influence comparable either to the pantheistic concepts of
metaphysics or to the sometime ether hypothesis of science. The
Unqualified Absolute is force unlimited and Deity conditioned, but we do
not fully perceive the relation of this Absolute to the spirit
realities of the universes.(14.8)0:11.10 3. The Universal Absolute,
we logically deduce, was inevitable in the Universal Father’s absolute
freewill act of differentiating universe realities into deified and
undeified — personalizable and nonpersonalizable — values. The Universal
Absolute is the Deity phenomenon indicative of the resolution of the
tension created by the freewill act of thus differentiating universe
reality, and functions as the associative co-ordinator of these sum
totals of existential potentialities.(15.1)0:11.11 The
tension-presence of the Universal Absolute signifies the adjustment of
differential between deity reality and undeified reality inherent in the
separation of the dynamics of freewill divinity from the statics of
unqualified infinity.(15.2)0:11.12 Always
remember: Potential infinity is absolute and inseparable from eternity.
Actual infinity in time can never be anything but partial and must
therefore be nonabsolute; neither can infinity of actual personality be
absolute except in unqualified Deity. And it is the differential of
infinity potential in the Unqualified Absolute and the Deity Absolute
that eternalizes the Universal Absolute, thereby making it cosmically
possible to have material universes in space and spiritually possible to
have finite personalities in time.(15.3)0:11.13 The finite
can coexist in the cosmos along with the Infinite only because the
associative presence of the Universal Absolute so perfectly equalizes
the tensions between time and eternity, finity and infinity, reality
potential and reality actuality, Paradise and space, man and God.
Associatively the Universal Absolute constitutes the identification of
the zone of progressing evolutional reality existent in the time-space,
and in the transcended time-space, universes of subinfinite Deity
manifestation.(15.4)0:11.14 The
Universal Absolute is the potential of the static-dynamic Deity
functionally realizable on time-eternity levels as finite-absolute
values and as possible of experiential-existential approach. This
incomprehensible aspect of Deity may be static, potential, and
associative but is not experientially creative or evolutional as
concerns the intelligent personalities now functioning in the master
universe.(15.5)0:11.15The Absolute.
The two Absolutes — qualified and unqualified — while so apparently
divergent in function as they may be observed by mind creatures, are
perfectly and divinely unified in and by the Universal Absolute. In the
last analysis and in the final comprehension all three are one Absolute.
On subinfinite levels they are functionally differentiated, but in
infinity they are ONE.(15.6)0:11.16 We never
use the term the Absolute as a negation of aught or as a denial of
anything. Neither do we regard the Universal Absolute as
self-determinative, a sort of pantheistic and impersonal Deity. The
Absolute, in all that pertains to universe personality, is strictly
Trinity limited and Deity dominated.

XII. The Trinities

(15.7)0:12.1 The original
and eternal Paradise Trinity is existential and was inevitable. This
never-beginning Trinity was inherent in the fact of the differentiation
of the personal and the nonpersonal by the Father’s unfettered will and
factualized when his personal will co-ordinated these dual realities by
mind. The post-Havona Trinities are experiential — are inherent in the
creation of two subabsolute and evolutional levels of power-personality
manifestation in the master universe.(15.8)0:12.2The Paradise Trinity —
the eternal Deity union of the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, and
the Infinite Spirit — is existential in actuality, but all potentials
are experiential. Therefore does this Trinity constitute the only Deity
reality embracing infinity, and therefore do there occur the universe
phenomena of the actualization of God the Supreme, God the Ultimate, and
God the Absolute.(15.9)0:12.3 The first and second experiential Trinities, the post-Havona Trinities, cannot be infinite because they embrace derived Deities,
Deities evolved by the experiential actualization of realities created
or eventuated by the existential Paradise Trinity. Infinity of divinity
is being ever enriched, if not enlarged, by finity and absonity of
creature and Creator experience.(16.1)0:12.4 Trinities
are truths of relationship and facts of co-ordinate Deity manifestation.
Trinity functions encompass Deity realities, and Deity realities always
seek realization and manifestation in personalization. God the Supreme,
God the Ultimate, and even God the Absolute are therefore divine
inevitabilities. These three experiential Deities were potential in the
existential Trinity, the Paradise Trinity, but their universe emergence
as personalities of power is dependent in part on their own experiential
functioning in the universes of power and personality and in part on
the experiential achievements of the post-Havona Creators and Trinities.(16.2)0:12.5 The two
post-Havona Trinities, the Ultimate and the Absolute experiential
Trinities, are not now fully manifest; they are in process of universe
realization. These Deity associations may be described as follows:

(16.3)0:12.6 1. The Ultimate Trinity,
now evolving, will eventually consist of the Supreme Being, the Supreme
Creator Personalities, and the absonite Architects of the Master
Universe, those unique universe planners who are neither creators nor
creatures. God the Ultimate will eventually and inevitably powerize and
personalize as the Deity consequence of the unification of this
experiential Ultimate Trinity in the expanding arena of the well-nigh
limitless master universe.(16.4)0:12.7 2. The Absolute Trinity —
the second experiential Trinity — now in process of actualization, will
consist of God the Supreme, God the Ultimate, and the unrevealed
Consummator of Universe Destiny. This Trinity functions on both personal
and superpersonal levels, even to the borders of the nonpersonal, and
its unification in universality would experientialize Absolute Deity.

(16.5)0:12.8 The Ultimate
Trinity is experientially unifying in completion, but we truly doubt
the possibility of such full unification of the Absolute Trinity. Our
concept, however, of the eternal Paradise Trinity is an ever-present
reminder that Deity trinitization may accomplish what is otherwise
nonattainable; hence do we postulate the sometime appearance of the Supreme-Ultimate and the possible trinitization-factualization of God the Absolute.(16.6)0:12.9 The philosophers of the universes postulate a Trinity of Trinities,
an existential-experiential Trinity Infinite, but they are not able to
envisage its personalization; possibly it would equivalate to the person
of the Universal Father on the conceptual level of the I AM. But
irrespective of all this, the original Paradise Trinity is potentially
infinite since the Universal Father actually is infinite.

Acknowledgment

(16.8)0:12.11 In
formulating the succeeding presentations having to do with the portrayal
of the character of the Universal Father and the nature of his Paradise
associates, together with an attempted description of the perfect
central universe and the encircling seven superuniverses, we are to be
guided by the mandate of the superuniverse rulers which directs that we
shall, in all our efforts to reveal truth and co-ordinate essential
knowledge, give preference to the highest existing human concepts
pertaining to the subjects to be presented. We may resort to pure
revelation only when the concept of presentation has had no adequate
previous expression by the human mind.(17.1)0:12.12 Successive
planetary revelations of divine truth invariably embrace the highest
existing concepts of spiritual values as a part of the new and enhanced
co-ordination of planetary knowledge. Accordingly, in making these
presentations about God and his universe associates, we have selected as
the basis of these papers more than one thousand human concepts
representing the highest and most advanced planetary knowledge of
spiritual values and universe meanings. Wherein these human concepts,
assembled from the God-knowing mortals of the past and the present, are
inadequate to portray the truth as we are directed to reveal it, we will
unhesitatingly supplement them, for this purpose drawing upon our own
superior knowledge of the reality and divinity of the Paradise Deities
and their transcendent residential universe.(17.2)0:12.13 We are
fully cognizant of the difficulties of our assignment; we recognize the
impossibility of fully translating the language of the concepts of
divinity and eternity into the symbols of the language of the finite
concepts of the mortal mind. But we know that there dwells within the
human mind a fragment of God, and that there sojourns with the human
soul the Spirit of Truth; and we further know that these spirit forces
conspire to enable material man to grasp the reality of spiritual values
and to comprehend the philosophy of universe meanings. But even more
certainly we know that these spirits of the Divine Presence are able to
assist man in the spiritual appropriation of all truth contributory to
the enhancement of the ever-progressing reality of personal religious
experience — God-consciousness.(17.3)0:12.14 [Indited
by an Orvonton Divine Counselor, Chief of the Corps of Superuniverse
Personalities assigned to portray on Urantia the truth concerning the
Paradise Deities and the universe of universes.]

The Urantia Book

Paper 1

(21.1)1:0.1 THE Universal
Father is the God of all creation, the First Source and Center of all
things and beings. First think of God as a creator, then as a
controller, and lastly as an infinite upholder. The truth about the
Universal Father had begun to dawn upon mankind when the prophet said:
“You, God, are alone; there is none beside you. You have created the
heaven and the heaven of heavens, with all their hosts; you preserve and
control them. By the Sons of God were the universes made. The Creator
covers himself with light as with a garment and stretches out the
heavens as a curtain.” Only the concept of the Universal Father — one
God in the place of many gods — enabled mortal man to comprehend the
Father as divine creator and infinite controller.(21.2)1:0.2 The myriads of
planetary systems were all made to be eventually inhabited by many
different types of intelligent creatures, beings who could know God,
receive the divine affection, and love him in return. The universe of
universes is the work of God and the dwelling place of his diverse
creatures. “God created the heavens and formed the earth; he established
the universe and created this world not in vain; he formed it to be
inhabited.”(21.3)1:0.3 The
enlightened worlds all recognize and worship the Universal Father, the
eternal maker and infinite upholder of all creation. The will creatures
of universe upon universe have embarked upon the long, long Paradise
journey, the fascinating struggle of the eternal adventure of attaining
God the Father. The transcendent goal of the children of time is to find
the eternal God, to comprehend the divine nature, to recognize the
Universal Father. God-knowing creatures have only one supreme ambition,
just one consuming desire, and that is to become, as they are in their
spheres, like him as he is in his Paradise perfection of personality and
in his universal sphere of righteous supremacy. From the Universal
Father who inhabits eternity there has gone forth the supreme mandate,
“Be you perfect, even as I am perfect.” In love and mercy the messengers
of Paradise have carried this divine exhortation down through the ages
and out through the universes, even to such lowly animal-origin
creatures as the human races of Urantia.(22.1)1:0.4 This
magnificent and universal injunction to strive for the attainment of the
perfection of divinity is the first duty, and should be the highest
ambition, of all the struggling creature creation of the God of
perfection. This possibility of the attainment of divine perfection is
the final and certain destiny of all man’s eternal spiritual progress.(22.2)1:0.5 Urantia
mortals can hardly hope to be perfect in the infinite sense, but it is
entirely possible for human beings, starting out as they do on this
planet, to attain the supernal and divine goal which the infinite God
has set for mortal man; and when they do achieve this destiny, they
will, in all that pertains to self-realization and mind attainment, be
just as replete in their sphere of divine perfection as God himself is
in his sphere of infinity and eternity. Such perfection may not be
universal in the material sense, unlimited in intellectual grasp, or
final in spiritual experience, but it is final and complete in all
finite aspects of divinity of will, perfection of personality
motivation, and God-consciousness.(22.3)1:0.6 This is the
true meaning of that divine command, “Be you perfect, even as I am
perfect,” which ever urges mortal man onward and beckons him inward in
that long and fascinating struggle for the attainment of higher and
higher levels of spiritual values and true universe meanings. This
sublime search for the God of universes is the supreme adventure of the
inhabitants of all the worlds of time and space.

1. The Father’s Name

(22.4)1:1.1 Of all the
names by which God the Father is known throughout the universes, those
which designate him as the First Source and the Universe Center are most
often encountered. The First Father is known by various names in
different universes and in different sectors of the same universe. The
names which the creature assigns to the Creator are much dependent on
the creature’s concept of the Creator. The First Source and Universe
Center has never revealed himself by name, only by nature. If we believe
that we are the children of this Creator, it is only natural that we
should eventually call him Father. But this is the name of our own
choosing, and it grows out of the recognition of our personal
relationship with the First Source and Center.(22.5)1:1.2 The Universal
Father never imposes any form of arbitrary recognition, formal worship,
or slavish service upon the intelligent will creatures of the universes.
The evolutionary inhabitants of the worlds of time and space must of
themselves — in their own hearts — recognize, love, and voluntarily
worship him. The Creator refuses to coerce or compel the submission of
the spiritual free wills of his material creatures. The affectionate
dedication of the human will to the doing of the Father’s will is man’s
choicest gift to God; in fact, such a consecration of creature will
constitutes man’s only possible gift of true value to the Paradise
Father. In God, man lives, moves, and has his being; there is nothing
which man can give to God except this choosing to abide by the Father’s
will, and such decisions, effected by the intelligent will creatures of
the universes, constitute the reality of that true worship which is so
satisfying to the love-dominated nature of the Creator Father.(22.6)1:1.3 When you have
once become truly God-conscious, after you really discover the majestic
Creator and begin to experience the realization of the indwelling
presence of the divine controller, then, in accordance with your
enlightenment and in accordance with the manner and method by which the
divine Sons reveal God, you will find a name for the Universal Father
which will be adequately expressive of your concept of the First Great
Source and Center. And so, on different worlds and in various universes,
the Creator becomes known by numerous appellations, in spirit of
relationship all meaning the same but, in words and symbols, each name
standing for the degree, the depth, of his enthronement in the hearts of
his creatures of any given realm.(23.1)1:1.4 Near the
center of the universe of universes, the Universal Father is generally
known by names which may be regarded as meaning the First Source.
Farther out in the universes of space, the terms employed to designate
the Universal Father more often mean the Universal Center. Still farther
out in the starry creation, he is known, as on the headquarters world
of your local universe, as the First Creative Source and Divine Center.
In one near-by constellation God is called the Father of Universes. In
another, the Infinite Upholder, and to the east, the Divine Controller.
He has also been designated the Father of Lights, the Gift of Life, and
the All-powerful One.(23.2)1:1.5 On those
worlds where a Paradise Son has lived a bestowal life, God is generally
known by some name indicative of personal relationship, tender
affection, and fatherly devotion. On your constellation headquarters God
is referred to as the Universal Father, and on different planets in
your local system of inhabited worlds he is variously known as the
Father of Fathers, the Paradise Father, the Havona Father, and the
Spirit Father. Those who know God through the revelations of the
bestowals of the Paradise Sons, eventually yield to the sentimental
appeal of the touching relationship of the creature-Creator association
and refer to God as “our Father.”(23.3)1:1.6 On a planet of
sex creatures, in a world where the impulses of parental emotion are
inherent in the hearts of its intelligent beings, the term Father
becomes a very expressive and appropriate name for the eternal God. He
is best known, most universally acknowledged, on your planet, Urantia,
by the name God. The name he is given is of little importance;
the significant thing is that you should know him and aspire to be like
him. Your prophets of old truly called him “the everlasting God” and
referred to him as the one who “inhabits eternity.”

2. The Reality of God

(23.4)1:2.1 God is primal
reality in the spirit world; God is the source of truth in the mind
spheres; God overshadows all throughout the material realms. To all
created intelligences God is a personality, and to the universe of
universes he is the First Source and Center of eternal reality. God is
neither manlike nor machinelike. The First Father is universal spirit,
eternal truth, infinite reality, and father personality.(23.5)1:2.2 The eternal
God is infinitely more than reality idealized or the universe
personalized. God is not simply the supreme desire of man, the mortal
quest objectified. Neither is God merely a concept, the power-potential
of righteousness. The Universal Father is not a synonym for nature,
neither is he natural law personified. God is a transcendent reality,
not merely man’s traditional concept of supreme values. God is not a
psychological focalization of spiritual meanings, neither is he “the
noblest work of man.” God may be any or all of these concepts in the
minds of men, but he is more. He is a saving person and a loving Father
to all who enjoy spiritual peace on earth, and who crave to experience
personality survival in death.(24.1)1:2.3 The actuality
of the existence of God is demonstrated in human experience by the
indwelling of the divine presence, the spirit Monitor sent from Paradise
to live in the mortal mind of man and there to assist in evolving the
immortal soul of eternal survival. The presence of this divine Adjuster
in the human mind is disclosed by three experiential phenomena:

(24.2)1:2.4 1. The intellectual capacity for knowing God — God-consciousness.(24.3)1:2.5 2. The spiritual urge to find God — God-seeking.(24.4)1:2.6 3. The personality craving to be like God — the wholehearted desire to do the Father’s will.

(24.5)1:2.7 The existence
of God can never be proved by scientific experiment or by the pure
reason of logical deduction. God can be realized only in the realms of
human experience; nevertheless, the true concept of the reality of God
is reasonable to logic, plausible to philosophy, essential to religion,
and indispensable to any hope of personality survival.(24.6)1:2.8 Those who know
God have experienced the fact of his presence; such God-knowing mortals
hold in their personal experience the only positive proof of the
existence of the living God which one human being can offer to another.
The existence of God is utterly beyond all possibility of demonstration
except for the contact between the God-consciousness of the human mind
and the God-presence of the Thought Adjuster that indwells the mortal
intellect and is bestowed upon man as the free gift of the Universal
Father.(24.7)1:2.9 In theory you
may think of God as the Creator, and he is the personal creator of
Paradise and the central universe of perfection, but the universes of
time and space are all created and organized by the Paradise corps of
the Creator Sons. The Universal Father is not the personal creator of
the local universe of Nebadon; the universe in which you live is the
creation of his Son Michael. Though the Father does not personally
create the evolutionary universes, he does control them in many of their
universal relationships and in certain of their manifestations of
physical, mindal, and spiritual energies. God the Father is the personal
creator of the Paradise universe and, in association with the Eternal
Son, the creator of all other personal universe Creators.(24.8)1:2.10 As a
physical controller in the material universe of universes, the First
Source and Center functions in the patterns of the eternal Isle of
Paradise, and through this absolute gravity center the eternal God
exercises cosmic overcontrol of the physical level equally in the
central universe and throughout the universe of universes. As mind, God
functions in the Deity of the Infinite Spirit; as spirit, God is
manifest in the person of the Eternal Son and in the persons of the
divine children of the Eternal Son. This interrelation of the First
Source and Center with the co-ordinate Persons and Absolutes of Paradise
does not in the least preclude the direct personal action of
the Universal Father throughout all creation and on all levels thereof.
Through the presence of his fragmentized spirit the Creator Father
maintains immediate contact with his creature children and his created
universes.

3. God is a Universal Spirit

(25.1)1:3.1 “God is
spirit.” He is a universal spiritual presence. The Universal Father is
an infinite spiritual reality; he is “the sovereign, eternal, immortal,
invisible, and only true God.” Even though you are “the offspring of
God,” you ought not to think that the Father is like yourselves in form
and physique because you are said to be created “in his image” — indwelt
by Mystery Monitors dispatched from the central abode of his eternal
presence. Spirit beings are real, notwithstanding they are invisible to
human eyes; even though they have not flesh and blood.(25.2)1:3.2 Said the seer
of old: “Lo, he goes by me, and I see him not; he passes on also, but I
perceive him not.” We may constantly observe the works of God, we may be
highly conscious of the material evidences of his majestic conduct, but
rarely may we gaze upon the visible manifestation of his divinity, not
even to behold the presence of his delegated spirit of human indwelling.(25.3)1:3.3 The Universal
Father is not invisible because he is hiding himself away from the lowly
creatures of materialistic handicaps and limited spiritual endowments.
The situation rather is: “You cannot see my face, for no mortal can see
me and live.” No material man could behold the spirit God and preserve
his mortal existence. The glory and the spiritual brilliance of the
divine personality presence is impossible of approach by the lower
groups of spirit beings or by any order of material personalities. The
spiritual luminosity of the Father’s personal presence is a “light which
no mortal man can approach; which no material creature has seen or can
see.” But it is not necessary to see God with the eyes of the flesh in
order to discern him by the faith-vision of the spiritualized mind.(25.4)1:3.4 The spirit
nature of the Universal Father is shared fully with his coexistent self,
the Eternal Son of Paradise. Both the Father and the Son in like manner
share the universal and eternal spirit fully and unreservedly with
their conjoint personality co-ordinate, the Infinite Spirit. God’s
spirit is, in and of himself, absolute; in the Son it is unqualified, in
the Spirit, universal, and in and by all of them, infinite.(25.5)1:3.5 God is a
universal spirit; God is the universal person. The supreme personal
reality of the finite creation is spirit; the ultimate reality of the
personal cosmos is absonite spirit. Only the levels of infinity are
absolute, and only on such levels is there finality of oneness between
matter, mind, and spirit.(25.6)1:3.6 In the
universes God the Father is, in potential, the overcontroller of matter,
mind, and spirit. Only by means of his far-flung personality circuit
does God deal directly with the personalities of his vast creation of
will creatures, but he is contactable (outside of Paradise) only in the
presences of his fragmented entities, the will of God abroad in the
universes. This Paradise spirit that indwells the minds of the mortals
of time and there fosters the evolution of the immortal soul of the
surviving creature is of the nature and divinity of the Universal
Father. But the minds of such evolutionary creatures originate in the
local universes and must gain divine perfection by achieving those
experiential transformations of spiritual attainment which are the
inevitable result of a creature’s choosing to do the will of the Father
in heaven.(26.1)1:3.7 In the inner
experience of man, mind is joined to matter. Such material-linked minds
cannot survive mortal death. The technique of survival is embraced in
those adjustments of the human will and those transformations in the
mortal mind whereby such a God-conscious intellect gradually becomes
spirit taught and eventually spirit led. This evolution of the human
mind from matter association to spirit union results in the
transmutation of the potentially spirit phases of the mortal mind into
the morontia realities of the immortal soul. Mortal mind subservient to
matter is destined to become increasingly material and consequently to
suffer eventual personality extinction; mind yielded to spirit is
destined to become increasingly spiritual and ultimately to achieve
oneness with the surviving and guiding divine spirit and in this way to
attain survival and eternity of personality existence.(26.2)1:3.8 I come forth
from the Eternal, and I have repeatedly returned to the presence of the
Universal Father. I know of the actuality and personality of the First
Source and Center, the Eternal and Universal Father. I know that, while
the great God is absolute, eternal, and infinite, he is also good,
divine, and gracious. I know the truth of the great declarations: “God
is spirit” and “God is love,” and these two attributes are most
completely revealed to the universe in the Eternal Son.

4. The Mystery of God

(26.3)1:4.1 The infinity
of the perfection of God is such that it eternally constitutes him
mystery. And the greatest of all the unfathomable mysteries of God is
the phenomenon of the divine indwelling of mortal minds. The manner in
which the Universal Father sojourns with the creatures of time is the
most profound of all universe mysteries; the divine presence in the mind
of man is the mystery of mysteries.(26.4)1:4.2 The physical
bodies of mortals are “the temples of God.” Notwithstanding that the
Sovereign Creator Sons come near the creatures of their inhabited worlds
and “draw all men to themselves”; though they “stand at the door” of
consciousness “and knock” and delight to come in to all who will “open
the doors of their hearts”; although there does exist this intimate
personal communion between the Creator Sons and their mortal creatures,
nevertheless, mortal men have something from God himself which actually
dwells within them; their bodies are the temples thereof.(26.5)1:4.3 When you are
through down here, when your course has been run in temporary form on
earth, when your trial trip in the flesh is finished, when the dust that
composes the mortal tabernacle “returns to the earth whence it came”;
then, it is revealed, the indwelling “Spirit shall return to God who
gave it.” There sojourns within each moral being of this planet a
fragment of God, a part and parcel of divinity. It is not yet yours by
right of possession, but it is designedly intended to be one with you if
you survive the mortal existence.(26.6)1:4.4 We are
constantly confronted with this mystery of God; we are nonplused by the
increasing unfolding of the endless panorama of the truth of his
infinite goodness, endless mercy, matchless wisdom, and superb
character.(26.7)1:4.5 The divine
mystery consists in the inherent difference which exists between the
finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal, the time-space
creature and the Universal Creator, the material and the spiritual, the
imperfection of man and the perfection of Paradise Deity. The God of
universal love unfailingly manifests himself to every one of his
creatures up to the fullness of that creature’s capacity to spiritually
grasp the qualities of divine truth, beauty, and goodness.(27.1)1:4.6 To every
spirit being and to every mortal creature in every sphere and on every
world of the universe of universes, the Universal Father reveals all of
his gracious and divine self that can be discerned or comprehended by
such spirit beings and by such mortal creatures. God is no respecter of
persons, either spiritual or material. The divine presence which any
child of the universe enjoys at any given moment is limited only by the
capacity of such a creature to receive and to discern the spirit
actualities of the supermaterial world.(27.2)1:4.7 As a reality
in human spiritual experience God is not a mystery. But when an attempt
is made to make plain the realities of the spirit world to the physical
minds of the material order, mystery appears: mysteries so subtle and so
profound that only the faith-grasp of the God-knowing mortal can
achieve the philosophic miracle of the recognition of the Infinite by
the finite, the discernment of the eternal God by the evolving mortals
of the material worlds of time and space.

5. Personality of the Universal Father

(27.3)1:5.1 Do not permit
the magnitude of God, his infinity, either to obscure or eclipse his
personality. “He who planned the ear, shall he not hear? He who formed
the eye, shall he not see?” The Universal Father is the acme of divine
personality; he is the origin and destiny of personality throughout all
creation. God is both infinite and personal; he is an infinite
personality. The Father is truly a personality, notwithstanding that the
infinity of his person places him forever beyond the full comprehension
of material and finite beings.(27.4)1:5.2 God is much
more than a personality as personality is understood by the human mind;
he is even far more than any possible concept of a superpersonality. But
it is utterly futile to discuss such incomprehensible concepts of
divine personality with the minds of material creatures whose maximum
concept of the reality of being consists in the idea and ideal of
personality. The material creature’s highest possible concept of the
Universal Creator is embraced within the spiritual ideals of the exalted
idea of divine personality. Therefore, although you may know that God
must be much more than the human conception of personality, you equally
well know that the Universal Father cannot possibly be anything less
than an eternal, infinite, true, good, and beautiful personality.(27.5)1:5.3 God is not
hiding from any of his creatures. He is unapproachable to so many orders
of beings only because he “dwells in a light which no material creature
can approach.” The immensity and grandeur of the divine personality is
beyond the grasp of the unperfected mind of evolutionary mortals. He
“measures the waters in the hollow of his hand, measures a universe with
the span of his hand. It is he who sits on the circle of the earth, who
stretches out the heavens as a curtain and spreads them out as a
universe to dwell in.” “Lift up your eyes on high and behold who has
created all these things, who brings out their worlds by number and
calls them all by their names”; and so it is true that “the invisible
things of God are partially understood by the things which are made.”
Today, and as you are, you must discern the invisible Maker through his
manifold and diverse creation, as well as through the revelation and
ministration of his Sons and their numerous subordinates.(28.1)1:5.4 Even though
material mortals cannot see the person of God, they should rejoice in
the assurance that he is a person; by faith accept the truth which
portrays that the Universal Father so loved the world as to provide for
the eternal spiritual progression of its lowly inhabitants; that he
“delights in his children.” God is lacking in none of those superhuman
and divine attributes which constitute a perfect, eternal, loving, and
infinite Creator personality.(28.2)1:5.5 In the local
creations (excepting the personnel of the superuniverses) God has no
personal or residential manifestation aside from the Paradise Creator
Sons who are the fathers of the inhabited worlds and the sovereigns of
the local universes. If the faith of the creature were perfect, he would
assuredly know that when he had seen a Creator Son he had seen the
Universal Father; in seeking for the Father, he would not ask nor expect
to see other than the Son. Mortal man simply cannot see God until he
achieves completed spirit transformation and actually attains Paradise.(28.3)1:5.6 The natures of
the Paradise Creator Sons do not encompass all the unqualified
potentials of the universal absoluteness of the infinite nature of the
First Great Source and Center, but the Universal Father is in every way divinely
present in the Creator Sons. The Father and his Sons are one. These
Paradise Sons of the order of Michael are perfect personalities, even
the pattern for all local universe personality from that of the Bright
and Morning Star down to the lowest human creature of progressing animal
evolution.(28.4)1:5.7 Without God
and except for his great and central person, there would be no
personality throughout all the vast universe of universes. God is personality.(28.5)1:5.8
Notwithstanding that God is an eternal power, a majestic presence, a
transcendent ideal, and a glorious spirit, though he is all these and
infinitely more, nonetheless, he is truly and everlastingly a perfect
Creator personality, a person who can “know and be known,” who can “love
and be loved,” and one who can befriend us; while you can be known, as
other humans have been known, as the friend of God. He is a real spirit
and a spiritual reality.(28.6)1:5.9 As we see the
Universal Father revealed throughout his universe; as we discern him
indwelling his myriads of creatures; as we behold him in the persons of
his Sovereign Sons; as we continue to sense his divine presence here and
there, near and afar, let us not doubt nor question his personality
primacy. Notwithstanding all these far-flung distributions, he remains a
true person and everlastingly maintains personal connection with the
countless hosts of his creatures scattered throughout the universe of
universes.(28.7)1:5.10 The idea of
the personality of the Universal Father is an enlarged and truer concept
of God which has come to mankind chiefly through revelation. Reason,
wisdom, and religious experience all infer and imply the personality of
God, but they do not altogether validate it. Even the indwelling Thought
Adjuster is prepersonal. The truth and maturity of any religion is
directly proportional to its concept of the infinite personality of God
and to its grasp of the absolute unity of Deity. The idea of a personal
Deity becomes, then, the measure of religious maturity after religion
has first formulated the concept of the unity of God.(29.1)1:5.11 Primitive
religion had many personal gods, and they were fashioned in the image of
man. Revelation affirms the validity of the personality concept of God
which is merely possible in the scientific postulate of a First Cause
and is only provisionally suggested in the philosophic idea of Universal
Unity. Only by personality approach can any person begin to comprehend
the unity of God. To deny the personality of the First Source and Center
leaves one only the choice of two philosophic dilemmas: materialism or
pantheism.(29.2)1:5.12 In the
contemplation of Deity, the concept of personality must be divested of
the idea of corporeality. A material body is not indispensable to
personality in either man or God. The corporeality error is shown in
both extremes of human philosophy. In materialism, since man loses his
body at death, he ceases to exist as a personality; in pantheism, since
God has no body, he is not, therefore, a person. The superhuman type of
progressing personality functions in a union of mind and spirit.(29.3)1:5.13 Personality
is not simply an attribute of God; it rather stands for the totality of
the co-ordinated infinite nature and the unified divine will which is
exhibited in eternity and universality of perfect expression.
Personality, in the supreme sense, is the revelation of God to the
universe of universes.(29.4)1:5.14 God, being
eternal, universal, absolute, and infinite, does not grow in knowledge
nor increase in wisdom. God does not acquire experience, as finite man
might conjecture or comprehend, but he does, within the realms of his
own eternal personality, enjoy those continuous expansions of
self-realization which are in certain ways comparable to, and analogous
with, the acquirement of new experience by the finite creatures of the
evolutionary worlds.(29.5)1:5.15 The absolute
perfection of the infinite God would cause him to suffer the awful
limitations of unqualified finality of perfectness were it not a fact
that the Universal Father directly participates in the personality
struggle of every imperfect soul in the wide universe who seeks, by
divine aid, to ascend to the spiritually perfect worlds on high. This
progressive experience of every spirit being and every mortal creature
throughout the universe of universes is a part of the Father’s
ever-expanding Deity-consciousness of the never-ending divine circle of
ceaseless self-realization.(29.6)1:5.16 It is
literally true: “In all your afflictions he is afflicted.” “In all your
triumphs he triumphs in and with you.” His prepersonal divine spirit is a
real part of you. The Isle of Paradise responds to all the physical
metamorphoses of the universe of universes; the Eternal Son includes all
the spirit impulses of all creation; the Conjoint Actor encompasses all
the mind expression of the expanding cosmos. The Universal Father
realizes in the fullness of the divine consciousness all the individual
experience of the progressive struggles of the expanding minds and the
ascending spirits of every entity, being, and personality of the whole
evolutionary creation of time and space. And all this is literally true,
for “in Him we all live and move and have our being.”

6. Personality in the Universe

(29.7)1:6.1 Human
personality is the time-space image-shadow cast by the divine Creator
personality. And no actuality can ever be adequately comprehended by an
examination of its shadow. Shadows should be interpreted in terms of the
true substance.(30.1)1:6.2 God is to
science a cause, to philosophy an idea, to religion a person, even the
loving heavenly Father. God is to the scientist a primal force, to the
philosopher a hypothesis of unity, to the religionist a living spiritual
experience. Man’s inadequate concept of the personality of the
Universal Father can be improved only by man’s spiritual progress in the
universe and will become truly adequate only when the pilgrims of time
and space finally attain the divine embrace of the living God on
Paradise.(30.2)1:6.3 Never lose
sight of the antipodal viewpoints of personality as it is conceived by
God and man. Man views and comprehends personality, looking from the
finite to the infinite; God looks from the infinite to the finite. Man
possesses the lowest type of personality; God, the highest, even
supreme, ultimate, and absolute. Therefore did the better concepts of
the divine personality have patiently to await the appearance of
improved ideas of human personality, especially the enhanced revelation
of both human and divine personality in the Urantian bestowal life of
Michael, the Creator Son.(30.3)1:6.4 The
prepersonal divine spirit which indwells the mortal mind carries, in its
very presence, the valid proof of its actual existence, but the concept
of the divine personality can be grasped only by the spiritual insight
of genuine personal religious experience. Any person, human or divine,
may be known and comprehended quite apart from the external reactions or
the material presence of that person.(30.4)1:6.5 Some degree of
moral affinity and spiritual harmony is essential to friendship between
two persons; a loving personality can hardly reveal himself to a
loveless person. Even to approach the knowing of a divine personality,
all of man’s personality endowments must be wholly consecrated to the
effort; halfhearted, partial devotion will be unavailing.(30.5)1:6.6 The more
completely man understands himself and appreciates the personality
values of his fellows, the more he will crave to know the Original
Personality, and the more earnestly such a God-knowing human will strive
to become like the Original Personality. You can argue over opinions
about God, but experience with him and in him exists above and beyond
all human controversy and mere intellectual logic. The God-knowing man
describes his spiritual experiences, not to convince unbelievers, but
for the edification and mutual satisfaction of believers.(30.6)1:6.7 To assume that
the universe can be known, that it is intelligible, is to assume that
the universe is mind made and personality managed. Man’s mind can only
perceive the mind phenomena of other minds, be they human or superhuman.
If man’s personality can experience the universe, there is a divine
mind and an actual personality somewhere concealed in that universe.(30.7)1:6.8 God is spirit —
spirit personality; man is also a spirit — potential spirit
personality. Jesus of Nazareth attained the full realization of this
potential of spirit personality in human experience; therefore his life
of achieving the Father’s will becomes man’s most real and ideal
revelation of the personality of God. Even though the personality of the
Universal Father can be grasped only in actual religious experience, in
Jesus’ earth life we are inspired by the perfect demonstration of such a
realization and revelation of the personality of God in a truly human
experience.

7. Spiritual Value of the Personality Concept

(31.1)1:7.1 When Jesus talked about “the living God,”
he referred to a personal Deity — the Father in heaven. The concept of
the personality of Deity facilitates fellowship; it favors intelligent
worship; it promotes refreshing trustfulness. Interactions can be had
between nonpersonal things, but not fellowship. The fellowship relation
of father and son, as between God and man, cannot be enjoyed unless both
are persons. Only personalities can commune with each other, albeit
this personal communion may be greatly facilitated by the presence of
just such an impersonal entity as the Thought Adjuster.(31.2)1:7.2 Man does not
achieve union with God as a drop of water might find unity with the
ocean. Man attains divine union by progressive reciprocal spiritual
communion, by personality intercourse with the personal God, by
increasingly attaining the divine nature through wholehearted and
intelligent conformity to the divine will. Such a sublime relationship
can exist only between personalities.(31.3)1:7.3 The concept of
truth might possibly be entertained apart from personality, the concept
of beauty may exist without personality, but the concept of divine
goodness is understandable only in relation to personality. Only a person
can love and be loved. Even beauty and truth would be divorced from
survival hope if they were not attributes of a personal God, a loving
Father.(31.4)1:7.4 We cannot
fully understand how God can be primal, changeless, all-powerful, and
perfect, and at the same time be surrounded by an ever-changing and
apparently law-limited universe, an evolving universe of relative
imperfections. But we can know such a truth in our own personal
experience since we all maintain identity of personality and unity of
will in spite of the constant changing of both ourselves and our
environment.(31.5)1:7.5 Ultimate
universe reality cannot be grasped by mathematics, logic, or philosophy,
only by personal experience in progressive conformity to the divine
will of a personal God. Neither science, philosophy, nor theology can
validate the personality of God. Only the personal experience of the
faith sons of the heavenly Father can effect the actual spiritual
realization of the personality of God.(31.6)1:7.6 The higher
concepts of universe personality imply: identity, self-consciousness,
self-will, and possibility for self-revelation. And these
characteristics further imply fellowship with other and equal
personalities, such as exists in the personality associations of the
Paradise Deities. And the absolute unity of these associations is so
perfect that divinity becomes known by indivisibility, by oneness. “The
Lord God is one.” Indivisibility of personality does not
interfere with God’s bestowing his spirit to live in the hearts of
mortal men. Indivisibility of a human father’s personality does not
prevent the reproduction of mortal sons and daughters.(31.7)1:7.7 This concept
of indivisibility in association with the concept of unity implies
transcendence of both time and space by the Ultimacy of Deity; therefore
neither space nor time can be absolute or infinite. The First Source
and Center is that infinity who unqualifiedly transcends all mind, all
matter, and all spirit.(31.8)1:7.8 The fact of
the Paradise Trinity in no manner violates the truth of the divine
unity. The three personalities of Paradise Deity are, in all universe
reality reactions and in all creature relations, as one. Neither does
the existence of these three eternal persons violate the truth of the
indivisibility of Deity. I am fully aware that I have at my command no
language adequate to make clear to the mortal mind how these universe
problems appear to us. But you should not become discouraged; not all of
these things are wholly clear to even the high personalities belonging
to my group of Paradise beings. Ever bear in mind that these profound
truths pertaining to Deity will increasingly clarify as your minds
become progressively spiritualized during the successive epochs of the
long mortal ascent to Paradise.(32.1)1:7.9 [Presented by a
Divine Counselor, a member of a group of celestial personalities
assigned by the Ancients of Days on Uversa, the headquarters of the
seventh superuniverse, to supervise those portions of this forthcoming
revelation which have to do with affairs beyond the borders of the local
universe of Nebadon. I am commissioned to sponsor those papers
portraying the nature and attributes of God because I represent the
highest source of information available for such a purpose on any
inhabited world. I have served as a Divine Counselor in all seven of the
superuniverses and have long resided at the Paradise center of all
things. Many times have I enjoyed the supreme pleasure of a sojourn in
the immediate personal presence of the Universal Father. I portray the
reality and truth of the Father’s nature and attributes with
unchallengeable authority; I know whereof I speak.]

The Urantia Book

Paper 2

The Nature of God

(33.1)2:0.1 INASMUCH as
man’s highest possible concept of God is embraced within the human idea
and ideal of a primal and infinite personality, it is permissible, and
may prove helpful, to study certain characteristics of the divine nature
which constitute the character of Deity. The nature of God can best be
understood by the revelation of the Father which Michael of Nebadon
unfolded in his manifold teachings and in his superb mortal life in the
flesh. The divine nature can also be better understood by man if he
regards himself as a child of God and looks up to the Paradise Creator
as a true spiritual Father.(33.2)2:0.2 The nature of
God can be studied in a revelation of supreme ideas, the divine
character can be envisaged as a portrayal of supernal ideals, but the
most enlightening and spiritually edifying of all revelations of the
divine nature is to be found in the comprehension of the religious life
of Jesus of Nazareth, both before and after his attainment of full
consciousness of divinity. If the incarnated life of Michael is taken as
the background of the revelation of God to man, we may attempt to put
in human word symbols certain ideas and ideals concerning the divine
nature which may possibly contribute to a further illumination and
unification of the human concept of the nature and the character of the
personality of the Universal Father.(33.3)2:0.3 In all our
efforts to enlarge and spiritualize the human concept of God, we are
tremendously handicapped by the limited capacity of the mortal mind. We
are also seriously handicapped in the execution of our assignment by the
limitations of language and by the poverty of material which can be
utilized for purposes of illustration or comparison in our efforts to
portray divine values and to present spiritual meanings to the finite,
mortal mind of man. All our efforts to enlarge the human concept of God
would be well-nigh futile except for the fact that the mortal mind is
indwelt by the bestowed Adjuster of the Universal Father and is pervaded
by the Truth Spirit of the Creator Son. Depending, therefore, on the
presence of these divine spirits within the heart of man for assistance
in the enlargement of the concept of God, I cheerfully undertake the
execution of my mandate to attempt the further portrayal of the nature
of God to the mind of man.

1. The Infinity of God

(33.4)2:1.1 “Touching the
Infinite, we cannot find him out. The divine footsteps are not known.”
“His understanding is infinite and his greatness is unsearchable.” The
blinding light of the Father’s presence is such that to his lowly
creatures he apparently “dwells in the thick darkness.” Not only are his
thoughts and plans unsearchable, but “he does great and marvelous
things without number.” “God is great; we comprehend him not, neither
can the number of his years be searched out.” “Will God indeed dwell on
the earth? Behold, the heaven (universe) and the heaven of heavens
(universe of universes) cannot contain him.” “How unsearchable are his
judgments and his ways past finding out!”(34.1)2:1.2 “There is but
one God, the infinite Father, who is also a faithful Creator.” “The
divine Creator is also the Universal Disposer, the source and destiny of
souls. He is the Supreme Soul, the Primal Mind, and the Unlimited
Spirit of all creation.” “The great Controller makes no mistakes. He is
resplendent in majesty and glory.” “The Creator God is wholly devoid of
fear and enmity. He is immortal, eternal, self-existent, divine, and
bountiful.” “How pure and beautiful, how deep and unfathomable is the
supernal Ancestor of all things!” “The Infinite is most excellent in
that he imparts himself to men. He is the beginning and the end, the
Father of every good and perfect purpose.” “With God all things are
possible; the eternal Creator is the cause of causes.”(34.2)2:1.3
Notwithstanding the infinity of the stupendous manifestations of the
Father’s eternal and universal personality, he is unqualifiedly
self-conscious of both his infinity and eternity; likewise he knows
fully his perfection and power. He is the only being in the universe,
aside from his divine co-ordinates, who experiences a perfect, proper,
and complete appraisal of himself.(34.3)2:1.4 The Father
constantly and unfailingly meets the need of the differential of demand
for himself as it changes from time to time in various sections of his
master universe. The great God knows and understands himself; he is
infinitely self-conscious of all his primal attributes of perfection.
God is not a cosmic accident; neither is he a universe experimenter. The
Universe Sovereigns may engage in adventure; the Constellation Fathers
may experiment; the system heads may practice; but the Universal Father
sees the end from the beginning, and his divine plan and eternal purpose
actually embrace and comprehend all the experiments and all the
adventures of all his subordinates in every world, system, and
constellation in every universe of his vast domains.(34.4)2:1.5 No thing is
new to God, and no cosmic event ever comes as a surprise; he inhabits
the circle of eternity. He is without beginning or end of days. To God
there is no past, present, or future; all time is present at any given
moment. He is the great and only I AM.(34.5)2:1.6 The Universal
Father is absolutely and without qualification infinite in all his
attributes; and this fact, in and of itself, automatically shuts him off
from all direct personal communication with finite material beings and
other lowly created intelligences.(34.6)2:1.7 And all this
necessitates such arrangements for contact and communication with his
manifold creatures as have been ordained, first, in the personalities of
the Paradise Sons of God, who, although perfect in divinity, also often
partake of the nature of the very flesh and blood of the planetary
races, becoming one of you and one with you; thus, as it were, God
becomes man, as occurred in the bestowal of Michael, who was called
interchangeably the Son of God and the Son of Man. And second, there are
the personalities of the Infinite Spirit, the various orders of the
seraphic hosts and other celestial intelligences who draw near to the
material beings of lowly origin and in so many ways minister to them and
serve them. And third, there are the impersonal Mystery Monitors,
Thought Adjusters, the actual gift of the great God himself sent to
indwell such as the humans of Urantia, sent without announcement and
without explanation. In endless profusion they descend from the heights
of glory to grace and indwell the humble minds of those mortals who
possess the capacity for God-consciousness or the potential therefor.(35.1)2:1.8 In these ways
and in many others, in ways unknown to you and utterly beyond finite
comprehension, does the Paradise Father lovingly and willingly downstep
and otherwise modify, dilute, and attenuate his infinity in order that
he may be able to draw nearer the finite minds of his creature children.
And so, through a series of personality distributions which are
diminishingly absolute, the infinite Father is enabled to enjoy close
contact with the diverse intelligences of the many realms of his
far-flung universe.(35.2)2:1.9 All this he
has done and now does, and evermore will continue to do, without in the
least detracting from the fact and reality of his infinity, eternity,
and primacy. And these things are absolutely true, notwithstanding the
difficulty of their comprehension, the mystery in which they are
enshrouded, or the impossibility of their being fully understood by
creatures such as dwell on Urantia.(35.3)2:1.10 Because the
First Father is infinite in his plans and eternal in his purposes, it is
inherently impossible for any finite being ever to grasp or comprehend
these divine plans and purposes in their fullness. Mortal man can
glimpse the Father’s purposes only now and then, here and there, as they
are revealed in relation to the outworking of the plan of creature
ascension on its successive levels of universe progression. Though man
cannot encompass the significance of infinity, the infinite Father does
most certainly fully comprehend and lovingly embrace all the finity of
all his children in all universes.(35.4)2:1.11 Divinity and
eternity the Father shares with large numbers of the higher Paradise
beings, but we question whether infinity and consequent universal
primacy is fully shared with any save his co-ordinate associates of the
Paradise Trinity. Infinity of personality must, perforce, embrace all
finitude of personality; hence the truth — literal truth — of the
teaching which declares that “In Him we live and move and have our
being.” That fragment of the pure Deity of the Universal Father which
indwells mortal man is a part of the infinity of the First Great Source and Center, the Father of Fathers.

2. The Father’s Eternal Perfection

(35.5)2:2.1 Even your
olden prophets understood the eternal, never-beginning, never-ending,
circular nature of the Universal Father. God is literally and eternally
present in his universe of universes. He inhabits the present moment
with all his absolute majesty and eternal greatness. “The Father has
life in himself, and this life is eternal life.” Throughout the eternal
ages it has been the Father who “gives to all life.” There is infinite
perfection in the divine integrity. “I am the Lord; I change not.” Our
knowledge of the universe of universes discloses not only that he is the
Father of lights, but also that in his conduct of interplanetary
affairs there “is no variableness neither shadow of changing.” He
“declares the end from the beginning.” He says: “My counsel shall stand;
I will do all my pleasures” “according to the eternal purpose which I
purposed in my Son.” Thus are the plans and purposes of the First Source
and Center like himself: eternal, perfect, and forever changeless.(35.6)2:2.2 There is
finality of completeness and perfection of repleteness in the mandates
of the Father. “Whatsoever God does, it shall be forever; nothing can be
added to it nor anything taken from it.” The Universal Father does not
repent of his original purposes of wisdom and perfection. His plans are
steadfast, his counsel immutable, while his acts are divine and
infallible. “A thousand years in his sight are but as yesterday when it
is past and as a watch in the night.” The perfection of divinity and the
magnitude of eternity are forever beyond the full grasp of the
circumscribed mind of mortal man.(36.1)2:2.3 The reactions
of a changeless God, in the execution of his eternal purpose, may seem
to vary in accordance with the changing attitude and the shifting minds
of his created intelligences; that is, they may apparently and
superficially vary; but underneath the surface and beneath all outward
manifestations, there is still present the changeless purpose, the
everlasting plan, of the eternal God.(36.2)2:2.4 Out in the
universes, perfection must necessarily be a relative term, but in the
central universe and especially on Paradise, perfection is undiluted; in
certain phases it is even absolute. Trinity manifestations vary the
exhibition of the divine perfection but do not attenuate it.(36.3)2:2.5 God’s primal
perfection consists not in an assumed righteousness but rather in the
inherent perfection of the goodness of his divine nature. He is final,
complete, and perfect. There is no thing lacking in the beauty and
perfection of his righteous character. And the whole scheme of living
existences on the worlds of space is centered in the divine purpose of
elevating all will creatures to the high destiny of the experience of
sharing the Father’s Paradise perfection. God is neither self-centered
nor self-contained; he never ceases to bestow himself upon all
self-conscious creatures of the vast universe of universes.(36.4)2:2.6 God is
eternally and infinitely perfect, he cannot personally know imperfection
as his own experience, but he does share the consciousness of all the
experience of imperfectness of all the struggling creatures of the
evolutionary universes of all the Paradise Creator Sons. The personal
and liberating touch of the God of perfection overshadows the hearts and
encircuits the natures of all those mortal creatures who have ascended
to the universe level of moral discernment. In this manner, as well as
through the contacts of the divine presence, the Universal Father
actually participates in the experience with immaturity and imperfection in the evolving career of every moral being of the entire universe.(36.5)2:2.7 Human limitations, potential evil, are not a part of the divine nature, but mortal experience with
evil and all man’s relations thereto are most certainly a part of God’s
ever-expanding self-realization in the children of time — creatures of
moral responsibility who have been created or evolved by every Creator
Son going out from Paradise.

3. Justice and Righteousness

(36.6)2:3.1 God is
righteous; therefore is he just. “The Lord is righteous in all his
ways.” “‘I have not done without cause all that I have done,’ says the
Lord.” “The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
The justice of the Universal Father cannot be influenced by the acts and
performances of his creatures, “for there is no iniquity with the Lord
our God, no respect of persons, no taking of gifts.”(36.7)2:3.2 How futile to
make puerile appeals to such a God to modify his changeless decrees so
that we can avoid the just consequences of the operation of his wise
natural laws and righteous spiritual mandates! “Be not deceived; God is
not mocked, for whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap.” True,
even in the justice of reaping the harvest of wrongdoing, this divine
justice is always tempered with mercy. Infinite wisdom is the eternal
arbiter which determines the proportions of justice and mercy which
shall be meted out in any given circumstance. The greatest punishment
(in reality an inevitable consequence) for wrongdoing and deliberate
rebellion against the government of God is loss of existence as an
individual subject of that government. The final result of wholehearted
sin is annihilation. In the last analysis, such sin-identified
individuals have destroyed themselves by becoming wholly unreal through
their embrace of iniquity. The factual disappearance of such a creature
is, however, always delayed until the ordained order of justice current
in that universe has been fully complied with.(37.1)2:3.3 Cessation of
existence is usually decreed at the dispensational or epochal
adjudication of the realm or realms. On a world such as Urantia it comes
at the end of a planetary dispensation. Cessation of existence can be
decreed at such times by co-ordinate action of all tribunals of
jurisdiction, extending from the planetary council up through the courts
of the Creator Son to the judgment tribunals of the Ancients of Days.
The mandate of dissolution originates in the higher courts of the
superuniverse following an unbroken confirmation of the indictment
originating on the sphere of the wrongdoer’s residence; and then, when
sentence of extinction has been confirmed on high, the execution is by
the direct act of those judges residential on, and operating from, the
headquarters of the superuniverse.(37.2)2:3.4 When this
sentence is finally confirmed, the sin-identified being instantly
becomes as though he had not been. There is no resurrection from such a
fate; it is everlasting and eternal. The living energy factors of
identity are resolved by the transformations of time and the
metamorphoses of space into the cosmic potentials whence they once
emerged. As for the personality of the iniquitous one, it is deprived of
a continuing life vehicle by the creature’s failure to make those
choices and final decisions which would have assured eternal life. When
the continued embrace of sin by the associated mind culminates in
complete self-identification with iniquity, then upon the cessation of
life, upon cosmic dissolution, such an isolated personality is absorbed
into the oversoul of creation, becoming a part of the evolving
experience of the Supreme Being. Never again does it appear as a
personality; its identity becomes as though it had never been. In the
case of an Adjuster-indwelt personality, the experiential spirit values
survive in the reality of the continuing Adjuster.(37.3)2:3.5 In any
universe contest between actual levels of reality, the personality of
the higher level will ultimately triumph over the personality of the
lower level. This inevitable outcome of universe controversy is inherent
in the fact that divinity of quality equals the degree of reality or
actuality of any will creature. Undiluted evil, complete error, willful
sin, and unmitigated iniquity are inherently and automatically suicidal.
Such attitudes of cosmic unreality can survive in the universe only
because of transient mercy-tolerance pending the action of the
justice-determining and fairness-finding mechanisms of the universe
tribunals of righteous adjudication.(37.4)2:3.6 The rule of
the Creator Sons in the local universes is one of creation and
spiritualization. These Sons devote themselves to the effective
execution of the Paradise plan of progressive mortal ascension, to the
rehabilitation of rebels and wrong thinkers, but when all such loving
efforts are finally and forever rejected, the final decree of
dissolution is executed by forces acting under the jurisdiction of the
Ancients of Days.

4. The Divine Mercy

(38.1)2:4.1 Mercy is
simply justice tempered by that wisdom which grows out of perfection of
knowledge and the full recognition of the natural weaknesses and
environmental handicaps of finite creatures. “Our God is full of
compassion, gracious, long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy.” Therefore
“whosoever calls upon the Lord shall be saved,” “for he will abundantly
pardon.” “The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting”;
yes, “his mercy endures forever.” “I am the Lord who executes
loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth, for in these
things I delight.” “I do not afflict willingly nor grieve the children
of men,” for I am “the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.”(38.2)2:4.2 God is
inherently kind, naturally compassionate, and everlastingly merciful.
And never is it necessary that any influence be brought to bear upon the
Father to call forth his loving-kindness. The creature’s need is wholly
sufficient to insure the full flow of the Father’s tender mercies and
his saving grace. Since God knows all about his children, it is easy for
him to forgive. The better man understands his neighbor, the easier it
will be to forgive him, even to love him.(38.3)2:4.3 Only the
discernment of infinite wisdom enables a righteous God to minister
justice and mercy at the same time and in any given universe situation.
The heavenly Father is never torn by conflicting attitudes towards his
universe children; God is never a victim of attitudinal antagonisms.
God’s all-knowingness unfailingly directs his free will in the choosing
of that universe conduct which perfectly, simultaneously, and equally
satisfies the demands of all his divine attributes and the infinite
qualities of his eternal nature.(38.4)2:4.4 Mercy is the
natural and inevitable offspring of goodness and love. The good nature
of a loving Father could not possibly withhold the wise ministry of
mercy to each member of every group of his universe children. Eternal
justice and divine mercy together constitute what in human experience
would be called fairness.(38.5)2:4.5 Divine mercy
represents a fairness technique of adjustment between the universe
levels of perfection and imperfection. Mercy is the justice of Supremacy
adapted to the situations of the evolving finite, the righteousness of
eternity modified to meet the highest interests and universe welfare of
the children of time. Mercy is not a contravention of justice but rather
an understanding interpretation of the demands of supreme justice as it
is fairly applied to the subordinate spiritual beings and to the
material creatures of the evolving universes. Mercy is the justice of
the Paradise Trinity wisely and lovingly visited upon the manifold
intelligences of the creations of time and space as it is formulated by
divine wisdom and determined by the all-knowing mind and the sovereign
free will of the Universal Father and all his associated Creators.

5. The Love of God

(38.6)2:5.1 “God is love”;
therefore his only personal attitude towards the affairs of the
universe is always a reaction of divine affection. The Father loves us
sufficiently to bestow his life upon us. “He makes his sun to rise on
the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”(39.1)2:5.2 It is wrong to
think of God as being coaxed into loving his children because of the
sacrifices of his Sons or the intercession of his subordinate creatures,
“for the Father himself loves you.” It is in response to this paternal
affection that God sends the marvelous Adjusters to indwell the minds of
men. God’s love is universal; “whosoever will may come.” He would “have
all men be saved by coming into the knowledge of the truth.” He is “not
willing that any should perish.”(39.2)2:5.3 The Creators
are the very first to attempt to save man from the disastrous results of
his foolish transgression of the divine laws. God’s love is by nature a
fatherly affection; therefore does he sometimes “chasten us for our own
profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness.” Even during your
fiery trials remember that “in all our afflictions he is afflicted with
us.”(39.3)2:5.4 God is
divinely kind to sinners. When rebels return to righteousness, they are
mercifully received, “for our God will abundantly pardon.” “I am he who
blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember
your sins.” “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us
that we should be called the sons of God.”(39.4)2:5.5 After all, the
greatest evidence of the goodness of God and the supreme reason for
loving him is the indwelling gift of the Father — the Adjuster who so
patiently awaits the hour when you both shall be eternally made one.
Though you cannot find God by searching, if you will submit to the
leading of the indwelling spirit, you will be unerringly guided, step by
step, life by life, through universe upon universe, and age by age,
until you finally stand in the presence of the Paradise personality of
the Universal Father.(39.5)2:5.6 How
unreasonable that you should not worship God because the limitations of
human nature and the handicaps of your material creation make it
impossible for you to see him. Between you and God there is a tremendous
distance (physical space) to be traversed. There likewise exists a
great gulf of spiritual differential which must be bridged; but
notwithstanding all that physically and spiritually separates you from
the Paradise personal presence of God, stop and ponder the solemn fact
that God lives within you; he has in his own way already bridged the
gulf. He has sent of himself, his spirit, to live in you and to toil
with you as you pursue your eternal universe career.(39.6)2:5.7 I find it easy
and pleasant to worship one who is so great and at the same time so
affectionately devoted to the uplifting ministry of his lowly creatures.
I naturally love one who is so powerful in creation and in the control
thereof, and yet who is so perfect in goodness and so faithful in the
loving-kindness which constantly overshadows us. I think I would love
God just as much if he were not so great and powerful, as long as he is
so good and merciful. We all love the Father more because of his nature
than in recognition of his amazing attributes.(39.7)2:5.8 When I observe
the Creator Sons and their subordinate administrators struggling so
valiantly with the manifold difficulties of time inherent in the
evolution of the universes of space, I discover that I bear these lesser
rulers of the universes a great and profound affection. After all, I
think we all, including the mortals of the realms, love the Universal
Father and all other beings, divine or human, because we discern that
these personalities truly love us. The experience of loving is very much
a direct response to the experience of being loved. Knowing that God
loves me, I should continue to love him supremely, even though he were
divested of all his attributes of supremacy, ultimacy, and absoluteness.(40.1)2:5.9 The Father’s
love follows us now and throughout the endless circle of the eternal
ages. As you ponder the loving nature of God, there is only one
reasonable and natural personality reaction thereto: You will
increasingly love your Maker; you will yield to God an affection
analogous to that given by a child to an earthly parent; for, as a
father, a real father, a true father, loves his children, so the
Universal Father loves and forever seeks the welfare of his created sons
and daughters.(40.2)2:5.10 But the love
of God is an intelligent and farseeing parental affection. The divine
love functions in unified association with divine wisdom and all other
infinite characteristics of the perfect nature of the Universal Father.
God is love, but love is not God. The greatest manifestation of the
divine love for mortal beings is observed in the bestowal of the Thought
Adjusters, but your greatest revelation of the Father’s love is seen in
the bestowal life of his Son Michael as he lived on earth the ideal
spiritual life. It is the indwelling Adjuster who individualizes the
love of God to each human soul.(40.3)2:5.11 At times I
am almost pained to be compelled to portray the divine affection of the
heavenly Father for his universe children by the employment of the human
word symbol love. This term, even though it does connote man’s
highest concept of the mortal relations of respect and devotion, is so
frequently designative of so much of human relationship that is wholly
ignoble and utterly unfit to be known by any word which is also used to
indicate the matchless affection of the living God for his universe
creatures! How unfortunate that I cannot make use of some supernal and
exclusive term which would convey to the mind of man the true nature and
exquisitely beautiful significance of the divine affection of the
Paradise Father.(40.4)2:5.12 When man
loses sight of the love of a personal God, the kingdom of God becomes
merely the kingdom of good. Notwithstanding the infinite unity of the
divine nature, love is the dominant characteristic of all God’s personal
dealings with his creatures.

6. The Goodness of God

(40.5)2:6.1 In the
physical universe we may see the divine beauty, in the intellectual
world we may discern eternal truth, but the goodness of God is found
only in the spiritual world of personal religious experience. In its
true essence, religion is a faith-trust in the goodness of God. God
could be great and absolute, somehow even intelligent and personal, in
philosophy, but in religion God must also be moral; he must be good. Man
might fear a great God, but he trusts and loves only a good God. This
goodness of God is a part of the personality of God, and its full
revelation appears only in the personal religious experience of the
believing sons of God.(40.6)2:6.2 Religion
implies that the superworld of spirit nature is cognizant of, and
responsive to, the fundamental needs of the human world. Evolutionary
religion may become ethical, but only revealed religion becomes truly
and spiritually moral. The olden concept that God is a Deity dominated
by kingly morality was upstepped by Jesus to that affectionately
touching level of intimate family morality of the parent-child
relationship, than which there is none more tender and beautiful in
mortal experience.(41.1)2:6.3 The “richness
of the goodness of God leads erring man to repentance.” “Every good gift
and every perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights.” “God is
good; he is the eternal refuge of the souls of men.” “The Lord God is
merciful and gracious. He is long-suffering and abundant in goodness and
truth.” “Taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who
trusts him.” “The Lord is gracious and full of compassion. He is the God
of salvation.” “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up the wounds of
the soul. He is man’s all-powerful benefactor.”(41.2)2:6.4 The concept of
God as a king-judge, although it fostered a high moral standard and
created a law-respecting people as a group, left the individual believer
in a sad position of insecurity respecting his status in time and in
eternity. The later Hebrew prophets proclaimed God to be a Father to
Israel; Jesus revealed God as the Father of each human being. The entire
mortal concept of God is transcendently illuminated by the life of
Jesus. Selflessness is inherent in parental love. God loves not like a father, but as a father. He is the Paradise Father of every universe personality.(41.3)2:6.5 Righteousness
implies that God is the source of the moral law of the universe. Truth
exhibits God as a revealer, as a teacher. But love gives and craves
affection, seeks understanding fellowship such as exists between parent
and child. Righteousness may be the divine thought, but love is a
father’s attitude. The erroneous supposition that the righteousness of
God was irreconcilable with the selfless love of the heavenly Father,
presupposed absence of unity in the nature of Deity and led directly to
the elaboration of the atonement doctrine, which is a philosophic
assault upon both the unity and the free-willness of God.(41.4)2:6.6 The
affectionate heavenly Father, whose spirit indwells his children on
earth, is not a divided personality — one of justice and one of mercy —
neither does it require a mediator to secure the Father’s favor or
forgiveness. Divine righteousness is not dominated by strict retributive
justice; God as a father transcends God as a judge.(41.5)2:6.7 God is never
wrathful, vengeful, or angry. It is true that wisdom does often restrain
his love, while justice conditions his rejected mercy. His love of
righteousness cannot help being exhibited as equal hatred for sin. The
Father is not an inconsistent personality; the divine unity is perfect.
In the Paradise Trinity there is absolute unity despite the eternal
identities of the co-ordinates of God.(41.6)2:6.8 God loves the sinner and hates
the sin: such a statement is true philosophically, but God is a
transcendent personality, and persons can only love and hate other
persons. Sin is not a person. God loves the sinner because he is a
personality reality (potentially eternal), while towards sin God strikes
no personal attitude, for sin is not a spiritual reality; it is not
personal; therefore does only the justice of God take cognizance of its
existence. The love of God saves the sinner; the law of God destroys the
sin. This attitude of the divine nature would apparently change if the
sinner finally identified himself wholly with sin just as the same
mortal mind may also fully identify itself with the indwelling spirit
Adjuster. Such a sin-identified mortal would then become wholly
unspiritual in nature (and therefore personally unreal) and would
experience eventual extinction of being. Unreality, even incompleteness
of creature nature, cannot exist forever in a progressingly real and
increasingly spiritual universe.(42.1)2:6.9 Facing the
world of personality, God is discovered to be a loving person; facing
the spiritual world, he is a personal love; in religious experience he
is both. Love identifies the volitional will of God. The goodness of God
rests at the bottom of the divine free-willness — the universal
tendency to love, show mercy, manifest patience, and minister
forgiveness.

7. Divine Truth and Beauty

(42.2)2:7.1 All finite knowledge and creature understanding are relative.
Information and intelligence, gleaned from even high sources, is only
relatively complete, locally accurate, and personally true.(42.3)2:7.2 Physical facts
are fairly uniform, but truth is a living and flexible factor in the
philosophy of the universe. Evolving personalities are only partially
wise and relatively true in their communications. They can be certain
only as far as their personal experience extends. That which apparently
may be wholly true in one place may be only relatively true in another
segment of creation.(42.4)2:7.3 Divine truth,
final truth, is uniform and universal, but the story of things
spiritual, as it is told by numerous individuals hailing from various
spheres, may sometimes vary in details owing to this relativity in the
completeness of knowledge and in the repleteness of personal experience
as well as in the length and extent of that experience. While the laws
and decrees, the thoughts and attitudes, of the First Great Source and
Center are eternally, infinitely, and universally true; at the same
time, their application to, and adjustment for, every universe, system,
world, and created intelligence, are in accordance with the plans and
technique of the Creator Sons as they function in their respective
universes, as well as in harmony with the local plans and procedures of
the Infinite Spirit and of all other associated celestial personalities.(42.5)2:7.4 The false
science of materialism would sentence mortal man to become an outcast in
the universe. Such partial knowledge is potentially evil; it is
knowledge composed of both good and evil. Truth is beautiful because it
is both replete and symmetrical. When man searches for truth, he pursues
the divinely real.(42.6)2:7.5 Philosophers
commit their gravest error when they are misled into the fallacy of
abstraction, the practice of focusing the attention upon one aspect of
reality and then of pronouncing such an isolated aspect to be the whole
truth. The wise philosopher will always look for the creative design
which is behind, and pre-existent to, all universe phenomena. The
creator thought invariably precedes creative action.(42.7)2:7.6 Intellectual
self-consciousness can discover the beauty of truth, its spiritual
quality, not only by the philosophic consistency of its concepts, but
more certainly and surely by the unerring response of the ever-present
Spirit of Truth. Happiness ensues from the recognition of truth because
it can be acted out; it can be lived. Disappointment and sorrow
attend upon error because, not being a reality, it cannot be realized
in experience. Divine truth is best known by its spiritual flavor.(42.8)2:7.7 The eternal
quest is for unification, for divine coherence. The far-flung physical
universe coheres in the Isle of Paradise; the intellectual universe
coheres in the God of mind, the Conjoint Actor; the spiritual universe
is coherent in the personality of the Eternal Son. But the isolated
mortal of time and space coheres in God the Father through the direct
relationship between the indwelling Thought Adjuster and the Universal
Father. Man’s Adjuster is a fragment of God and everlastingly seeks for
divine unification; it coheres with, and in, the Paradise Deity of the
First Source and Center.(43.1)2:7.8 The
discernment of supreme beauty is the discovery and integration of
reality: The discernment of the divine goodness in the eternal truth,
that is ultimate beauty. Even the charm of human art consists in the
harmony of its unity.(43.2)2:7.9 The great
mistake of the Hebrew religion was its failure to associate the goodness
of God with the factual truths of science and the appealing beauty of
art. As civilization progressed, and since religion continued to pursue
the same unwise course of overemphasizing the goodness of God to the
relative exclusion of truth and neglect of beauty, there developed an
increasing tendency for certain types of men to turn away from the
abstract and dissociated concept of isolated goodness. The overstressed
and isolated morality of modern religion, which fails to hold the
devotion and loyalty of many twentieth-century men, would rehabilitate
itself if, in addition to its moral mandates, it would give equal
consideration to the truths of science, philosophy, and spiritual
experience, and to the beauties of the physical creation, the charm of
intellectual art, and the grandeur of genuine character achievement.(43.3)2:7.10 The
religious challenge of this age is to those farseeing and
forward-looking men and women of spiritual insight who will dare to
construct a new and appealing philosophy of living out of the enlarged
and exquisitely integrated modern concepts of cosmic truth, universe
beauty, and divine goodness. Such a new and righteous vision of morality
will attract all that is good in the mind of man and challenge that
which is best in the human soul. Truth, beauty, and goodness are divine
realities, and as man ascends the scale of spiritual living, these
supreme qualities of the Eternal become increasingly co-ordinated and
unified in God, who is love.(43.4)2:7.11 All truth —
material, philosophic, or spiritual — is both beautiful and good. All
real beauty — material art or spiritual symmetry — is both true and
good. All genuine goodness — whether personal morality, social equity,
or divine ministry — is equally true and beautiful. Health, sanity, and
happiness are integrations of truth, beauty, and goodness as they are
blended in human experience. Such levels of efficient living come about
through the unification of energy systems, idea systems, and spirit
systems.(43.5)2:7.12 Truth is
coherent, beauty attractive, goodness stabilizing. And when these values
of that which is real are co-ordinated in personality experience, the
result is a high order of love conditioned by wisdom and qualified by
loyalty. The real purpose of all universe education is to effect the
better co-ordination of the isolated child of the worlds with the larger
realities of his expanding experience. Reality is finite on the human
level, infinite and eternal on the higher and divine levels.(43.6)2:7.13 [Presented by a Divine Counselor acting by authority of the Ancients of Days on Uversa.]

The Urantia Book

Paper 3

The Attributes of God

(44.1)3:0.1 GOD is
everywhere present; the Universal Father rules the circle of eternity.
But he rules in the local universes in the persons of his Paradise
Creator Sons, even as he bestows life through these Sons. “God has given
us eternal life, and this life is in his Sons.” These Creator Sons of
God are the personal expression of himself in the sectors of time and to
the children of the whirling planets of the evolving universes of
space.(44.2)3:0.2 The highly
personalized Sons of God are clearly discernible by the lower orders of
created intelligences, and so do they compensate for the invisibility of
the infinite and therefore less discernible Father. The Paradise
Creator Sons of the Universal Father are a revelation of an otherwise
invisible being, invisible because of the absoluteness and infinity
inherent in the circle of eternity and in the personalities of the
Paradise Deities.(44.3)3:0.3 Creatorship is
hardly an attribute of God; it is rather the aggregate of his acting
nature. And this universal function of creatorship is eternally
manifested as it is conditioned and controlled by all the co-ordinated
attributes of the infinite and divine reality of the First Source and
Center. We sincerely doubt whether any one characteristic of the divine
nature can be regarded as being antecedent to the others, but if such
were the case, then the creatorship nature of Deity would take
precedence over all other natures, activities, and attributes. And the
creatorship of Deity culminates in the universal truth of the Fatherhood
of God.

1. God’s Everywhereness

(44.4)3:1.1 The ability of
the Universal Father to be everywhere present, and at the same time,
constitutes his omnipresence. God alone can be in two places, in
numberless places, at the same time. God is simultaneously present “in
heaven above and on the earth beneath”; as the Psalmist exclaimed:
“Whither shall I go from your spirit? or whither shall I flee from your
presence?”(44.5)3:1.2 “‘I am a God
at hand as well as afar off,’ says the Lord. ‘Do not I fill heaven and
earth?’” The Universal Father is all the time present in all parts and
in all hearts of his far-flung creation. He is “the fullness of him who
fills all and in all,” and “who works all in all,” and further, the
concept of his personality is such that “the heaven (universe) and
heaven of heavens (universe of universes) cannot contain him.” It is
literally true that God is all and in all. But even that is not all
of God. The Infinite can be finally revealed only in infinity; the
cause can never be fully comprehended by an analysis of effects; the
living God is immeasurably greater than the sum total of creation that
has come into being as a result of the creative acts of his unfettered
free will. God is revealed throughout the cosmos, but the cosmos can
never contain or encompass the entirety of the infinity of God.(45.1)3:1.3 The Father’s
presence unceasingly patrols the master universe. “His going forth is
from the end of the heaven, and his circuit to the ends of it; and there
is nothing hidden from the light thereof.”(45.2)3:1.4 The creature
not only exists in God, but God also lives in the creature. “We know we
dwell in him because he lives in us; he has given us his spirit. This
gift from the Paradise Father is man’s inseparable companion.” “He is
the ever-present and all-pervading God.” “The spirit of the everlasting
Father is concealed in the mind of every mortal child.” “Man goes forth
searching for a friend while that very friend lives within his own
heart.” “The true God is not afar off; he is a part of us; his spirit
speaks from within us.” “The Father lives in the child. God is always
with us. He is the guiding spirit of eternal destiny.”(45.3)3:1.5 Truly of the
human race has it been said, “You are of God” because “he who dwells in
love dwells in God, and God in him.” Even in wrongdoing you torment the
indwelling gift of God, for the Thought Adjuster must needs go through
the consequences of evil thinking with the human mind of its
incarceration.(45.4)3:1.6 The
omnipresence of God is in reality a part of his infinite nature; space
constitutes no barrier to Deity. God is, in perfection and without
limitation, discernibly present only on Paradise and in the central
universe. He is not thus observably present in the creations encircling
Havona, for God has limited his direct and actual presence in
recognition of the sovereignty and the divine prerogatives of the
co-ordinate creators and rulers of the universes of time and space.
Hence must the concept of the divine presence allow for a wide range of
both mode and channel of manifestation embracing the presence circuits
of the Eternal Son, the Infinite Spirit, and the Isle of Paradise. Nor
is it always possible to distinguish between the presence of the
Universal Father and the actions of his eternal co-ordinates and
agencies, so perfectly do they fulfill all the infinite requirements of
his unchanging purpose. But not so with the personality circuit and the
Adjusters; here God acts uniquely, directly, and exclusively.(45.5)3:1.7 The Universal
Controller is potentially present in the gravity circuits of the Isle of
Paradise in all parts of the universe at all times and in the same
degree, in accordance with the mass, in response to the physical demands
for this presence, and because of the inherent nature of all creation
which causes all things to adhere and consist in him. Likewise is the
First Source and Center potentially present in the Unqualified Absolute,
the repository of the uncreated universes of the eternal future. God
thus potentially pervades the physical universes of the past, present,
and future. He is the primordial foundation of the coherence of the
so-called material creation. This nonspiritual Deity potential becomes
actual here and there throughout the level of physical existences by the
inexplicable intrusion of some one of his exclusive agencies upon the
stage of universe action.(45.6)3:1.8 The mind
presence of God is correlated with the absolute mind of the Conjoint
Actor, the Infinite Spirit, but in the finite creations it is better
discerned in the everywhere functioning of the cosmic mind of the
Paradise Master Spirits. Just as the First Source and Center is
potentially present in the mind circuits of the Conjoint Actor, so is he
potentially present in the tensions of the Universal Absolute. But mind
of the human order is a bestowal of the Daughters of the Conjoint
Actor, the Divine Ministers of the evolving universes.(46.1)3:1.9 The
everywhere-present spirit of the Universal Father is co-ordinated with
the function of the universal spirit presence of the Eternal Son and the
everlasting divine potential of the Deity Absolute. But neither the
spiritual activity of the Eternal Son and his Paradise Sons nor the mind
bestowals of the Infinite Spirit seem to exclude the direct action of
the Thought Adjusters, the indwelling fragments of God, in the hearts of
his creature children.(46.2)3:1.10 Concerning
God’s presence in a planet, system, constellation, or a universe, the
degree of such presence in any creational unit is a measure of the
degree of the evolving presence of the Supreme Being: It is determined
by the en masse recognition of God and loyalty to him on the part of the
vast universe organization, running down to the systems and planets
themselves. Therefore it is sometimes with the hope of conserving and
safeguarding these phases of God’s precious presence that, when some
planets (or even systems) have plunged far into spiritual darkness, they
are in a certain sense quarantined, or partially isolated from
intercourse with the larger units of creation. And all this, as it
operates on Urantia, is a spiritually defensive reaction of the majority
of the worlds to save themselves, as far as possible, from suffering
the isolating consequences of the alienating acts of a headstrong,
wicked, and rebellious minority.(46.3)3:1.11 While the
Father parentally encircuits all his sons — all personalities — his
influence in them is limited by the remoteness of their origin from the
Second and the Third Persons of Deity and augmented as their destiny
attainment nears such levels. The fact of God’s presence in
creature minds is determined by whether or not they are indwelt by
Father fragments, such as the Mystery Monitors, but his effective presence is determined by the degree of co-operation accorded these indwelling Adjusters by the minds of their sojourn.(46.4)3:1.12 The
fluctuations of the Father’s presence are not due to the changeableness
of God. The Father does not retire in seclusion because he has been
slighted; his affections are not alienated because of the creature’s
wrongdoing. Rather, having been endowed with the power of choice
(concerning Himself), his children, in the exercise of that choice,
directly determine the degree and limitations of the Father’s divine
influence in their own hearts and souls. The Father has freely bestowed
himself upon us without limit and without favor. He is no respecter of
persons, planets, systems, or universes. In the sectors of time he
confers differential honor only on the Paradise personalities of God the
Sevenfold, the co-ordinate creators of the finite universes.

2. God’s Infinite Power

(46.5)3:2.1 All the
universes know that “the Lord God omnipotent reigns.” The affairs of
this world and other worlds are divinely supervised. “He does according
to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the
earth.” It is eternally true, “there is no power but of God.”(46.6)3:2.2 Within the
bounds of that which is consistent with the divine nature, it is
literally true that “with God all things are possible.” The
long-drawn-out evolutionary processes of peoples, planets, and universes
are under the perfect control of the universe creators and
administrators and unfold in accordance with the eternal purpose of the
Universal Father, proceeding in harmony and order and in keeping with
the all-wise plan of God. There is only one lawgiver. He upholds the
worlds in space and swings the universes around the endless circle of
the eternal circuit.(47.1)3:2.3 Of all the
divine attributes, his omnipotence, especially as it prevails in the
material universe, is the best understood. Viewed as an unspiritual
phenomenon, God is energy. This declaration of physical fact is
predicated on the incomprehensible truth that the First Source and
Center is the primal cause of the universal physical phenomena of all
space. From this divine activity all physical energy and other material
manifestations are derived. Light, that is, light without heat, is
another of the nonspiritual manifestations of the Deities. And there is
still another form of nonspiritual energy which is virtually unknown on
Urantia; it is as yet unrecognized.(47.2)3:2.4 God controls
all power; he has made “a way for the lightning”; he has ordained the
circuits of all energy. He has decreed the time and manner of the
manifestation of all forms of energy-matter. And all these things are
held forever in his everlasting grasp — in the gravitational control
centering on nether Paradise. The light and energy of the eternal God
thus swing on forever around his majestic circuit, the endless but
orderly procession of the starry hosts composing the universe of
universes. All creation circles eternally around the
Paradise-Personality center of all things and beings.(47.3)3:2.5 The
omnipotence of the Father pertains to the everywhere dominance of the
absolute level, whereon the three energies, material, mindal, and
spiritual, are indistinguishable in close proximity to him — the Source
of all things. Creature mind, being neither Paradise monota nor Paradise
spirit, is not directly responsive to the Universal Father. God adjusts with the mind of imperfection — with Urantia mortals through the Thought Adjusters.(47.4)3:2.6 The Universal
Father is not a transient force, a shifting power, or a fluctuating
energy. The power and wisdom of the Father are wholly adequate to cope
with any and all universe exigencies. As the emergencies of human
experience arise, he has foreseen them all, and therefore he does not
react to the affairs of the universe in a detached way but rather in
accordance with the dictates of eternal wisdom and in consonance with
the mandates of infinite judgment. Regardless of appearances, the power
of God is not functioning in the universe as a blind force.(47.5)3:2.7 Situations do
arise in which it appears that emergency rulings have been made, that
natural laws have been suspended, that misadaptations have been
recognized, and that an effort is being made to rectify the situation;
but such is not the case. Such concepts of God have their origin in the
limited range of your viewpoint, in the finiteness of your
comprehension, and in the circumscribed scope of your survey; such
misunderstanding of God is due to the profound ignorance you enjoy
regarding the existence of the higher laws of the realm, the magnitude
of the Father’s character, the infinity of his attributes, and the fact
of his free-willness.(47.6)3:2.8 The planetary
creatures of God’s spirit indwelling, scattered hither and yon
throughout the universes of space, are so nearly infinite in number and
order, their intellects are so diverse, their minds are so limited and
sometimes so gross, their vision is so curtailed and localized, that it
is almost impossible to formulate generalizations of law adequately
expressive of the Father’s infinite attributes and at the same time to
any degree comprehensible to these created intelligences. Therefore, to
you the creature, many of the acts of the all-powerful Creator seem to
be arbitrary, detached, and not infrequently heartless and cruel. But
again I assure you that this is not true. God’s doings are all
purposeful, intelligent, wise, kind, and eternally considerate of the
best good, not always of an individual being, an individual race, an
individual planet, or even an individual universe; but they are for the
welfare and best good of all concerned, from the lowest to the highest.
In the epochs of time the welfare of the part may sometimes appear to
differ from the welfare of the whole; in the circle of eternity such
apparent differences are nonexistent.(48.1)3:2.9 We are all a
part of the family of God, and we must therefore sometimes share in the
family discipline. Many of the acts of God which so disturb and confuse
us are the result of the decisions and final rulings of all-wisdom,
empowering the Conjoint Actor to execute the choosing of the infallible
will of the infinite mind, to enforce the decisions of the personality
of perfection, whose survey, vision, and solicitude embrace the highest
and eternal welfare of all his vast and far-flung creation.(48.2)3:2.10 Thus it is
that your detached, sectional, finite, gross, and highly materialistic
viewpoint and the limitations inherent in the nature of your being
constitute such a handicap that you are unable to see, comprehend, or
know the wisdom and kindness of many of the divine acts which to you
seem fraught with such crushing cruelty, and which seem to be
characterized by such utter indifference to the comfort and welfare, to
the planetary happiness and personal prosperity, of your fellow
creatures. It is because of the limits of human vision, it is because of
your circumscribed understanding and finite comprehension, that you
misunderstand the motives, and pervert the purposes, of God. But many
things occur on the evolutionary worlds which are not the personal
doings of the Universal Father.(48.3)3:2.11 The divine
omnipotence is perfectly co-ordinated with the other attributes of the
personality of God. The power of God is, ordinarily, only limited in its
universe spiritual manifestation by three conditions or situations:

(48.4)3:2.12 1. By the nature of God, especially by his infinite love, by truth, beauty, and goodness.(48.5)3:2.13 2. By the will of God, by his mercy ministry and fatherly relationship with the personalities of the universe.(48.6)3:2.14 3. By the law of God, by the righteousness and justice of the eternal Paradise Trinity.

(48.7)3:2.15 God is
unlimited in power, divine in nature, final in will, infinite in
attributes, eternal in wisdom, and absolute in reality. But all these
characteristics of the Universal Father are unified in Deity and
universally expressed in the Paradise Trinity and in the divine Sons of
the Trinity. Otherwise, outside of Paradise and the central universe of
Havona, everything pertaining to God is limited by the evolutionary
presence of the Supreme, conditioned by the eventuating presence of the
Ultimate, and co-ordinated by the three existential Absolutes — Deity,
Universal, and Unqualified. And God’s presence is thus limited because
such is the will of God.

3. God’s Universal Knowledge

(48.8)3:3.1 “God knows all
things.” The divine mind is conscious of, and conversant with, the
thought of all creation. His knowledge of events is universal and
perfect. The divine entities going out from him are a part of him; he
who “balances the clouds” is also “perfect in knowledge.” “The eyes of
the Lord are in every place.” Said your great teacher of the
insignificant sparrow, “One of them shall not fall to the ground without
my Father’s knowledge,” and also, “The very hairs of your head are
numbered.” “He tells the number of the stars; he calls them all by their
names.”(49.1)3:3.2 The Universal
Father is the only personality in all the universe who does actually
know the number of the stars and planets of space. All the worlds of
every universe are constantly within the consciousness of God. He also
says: “I have surely seen the affliction of my people, I have heard
their cry, and I know their sorrows.” For “the Lord looks from heaven;
he beholds all the sons of men; from the place of his habitation he
looks upon all the inhabitants of the earth.” Every creature child may
truly say: “He knows the way I take, and when he has tried me, I shall
come forth as gold.” “God knows our downsittings and our uprisings; he
understands our thoughts afar off and is acquainted with all our ways.”
“All things are naked and open to the eyes of him with whom we have to
do.” And it should be a real comfort to every human being to understand
that “he knows your frame; he remembers that you are dust.” Jesus,
speaking of the living God, said, “Your Father knows what you have need
of even before you ask him.”(49.2)3:3.3 God is
possessed of unlimited power to know all things; his consciousness is
universal. His personal circuit encompasses all personalities, and his
knowledge of even the lowly creatures is supplemented indirectly through
the descending series of divine Sons and directly through the
indwelling Thought Adjusters. And furthermore, the Infinite Spirit is
all the time everywhere present.(49.3)3:3.4 We are not
wholly certain as to whether or not God chooses to foreknow events of
sin. But even if God should foreknow the freewill acts of his children,
such foreknowledge does not in the least abrogate their freedom. One
thing is certain: God is never subjected to surprise.(49.4)3:3.5 Omnipotence
does not imply the power to do the nondoable, the ungodlike act. Neither
does omniscience imply the knowing of the unknowable. But such
statements can hardly be made comprehensible to the finite mind. The
creature can hardly understand the range and limitations of the will of
the Creator.

4. God’s Limitlessness

(49.5)3:4.1 The successive
bestowal of himself upon the universes as they are brought into being
in no wise lessens the potential of power or the store of wisdom as they
continue to reside and repose in the central personality of Deity. In
potential of force, wisdom, and love, the Father has never lessened
aught of his possession nor become divested of any attribute of his
glorious personality as the result of the unstinted bestowal of himself
upon the Paradise Sons, upon his subordinate creations, and upon the
manifold creatures thereof.(49.6)3:4.2 The creation
of every new universe calls for a new adjustment of gravity; but even if
creation should continue indefinitely, eternally, even to infinity, so
that eventually the material creation would exist without limitations,
still the power of control and co-ordination reposing in the Isle of
Paradise would be found equal to, and adequate for, the mastery,
control, and co-ordination of such an infinite universe. And subsequent
to this bestowal of limitless force and power upon a boundless universe,
the Infinite would still be surcharged with the same degree of force
and energy; the Unqualified Absolute would still be undiminished; God
would still possess the same infinite potential, just as if force,
energy, and power had never been poured forth for the endowment of
universe upon universe.(50.1)3:4.3 And so with
wisdom: The fact that mind is so freely distributed to the thinking of
the realms in no wise impoverishes the central source of divine wisdom.
As the universes multiply, and beings of the realms increase in number
to the limits of comprehension, if mind continues without end to be
bestowed upon these beings of high and low estate, still will God’s
central personality continue to embrace the same eternal, infinite, and
all-wise mind.(50.2)3:4.4 The fact that
he sends forth spirit messengers from himself to indwell the men and
women of your world and other worlds in no wise lessens his ability to
function as a divine and all-powerful spirit personality; and there is
absolutely no limit to the extent or number of such spirit Monitors
which he can and may send out. This giving of himself to his creatures
creates a boundless, almost inconceivable future possibility of
progressive and successive existences for these divinely endowed
mortals. And this prodigal distribution of himself as these ministering
spirit entities in no manner diminishes the wisdom and perfection of
truth and knowledge which repose in the person of the all-wise,
all-knowing, and all-powerful Father.(50.3)3:4.5 To the mortals
of time there is a future, but God inhabits eternity. Even though I
hail from near the very abiding place of Deity, I cannot presume to
speak with perfection of understanding concerning the infinity of many
of the divine attributes. Infinity of mind alone can fully comprehend
infinity of existence and eternity of action.(50.4)3:4.6 Mortal man
cannot possibly know the infinitude of the heavenly Father. Finite mind
cannot think through such an absolute truth or fact. But this same
finite human being can actually feel — literally experience —
the full and undiminished impact of such an infinite Father’s LOVE. Such
a love can be truly experienced, albeit while quality of experience is
unlimited, quantity of such an experience is strictly limited by the
human capacity for spiritual receptivity and by the associated capacity
to love the Father in return.(50.5)3:4.7 Finite
appreciation of infinite qualities far transcends the logically limited
capacities of the creature because of the fact that mortal man is made
in the image of God — there lives within him a fragment of infinity.
Therefore man’s nearest and dearest approach to God is by and through
love, for God is love. And all of such a unique relationship is an
actual experience in cosmic sociology, the Creator-creature relationship
— the Father-child affection.

5. The Father’s Supreme Rule

(50.6)3:5.1 In his contact
with the post-Havona creations, the Universal Father does not exercise
his infinite power and final authority by direct transmittal but rather
through his Sons and their subordinate personalities. And God does all
this of his own free will. Any and all powers delegated, if occasion
should arise, if it should become the choice of the divine mind, could
be exercised direct; but, as a rule, such action only takes place as a
result of the failure of the delegated personality to fulfill the divine
trust. At such times and in the face of such default and within the
limits of the reservation of divine power and potential, the Father does
act independently and in accordance with the mandates of his own
choice; and that choice is always one of unfailing perfection and
infinite wisdom.(51.1)3:5.2 The Father
rules through his Sons; on down through the universe organization there
is an unbroken chain of rulers ending with the Planetary Princes, who
direct the destinies of the evolutionary spheres of the Father’s vast
domains. It is no mere poetic expression that exclaims: “The earth is
the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” “He removes kings and sets up
kings.” “The Most Highs rule in the kingdoms of men.”(51.2)3:5.3 In the affairs
of men’s hearts the Universal Father may not always have his way; but
in the conduct and destiny of a planet the divine plan prevails; the
eternal purpose of wisdom and love triumphs.(51.3)3:5.4 Said Jesus: “My Father, who gave them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.”
As you glimpse the manifold workings and view the staggering immensity
of God’s well-nigh limitless creation, you may falter in your concept of
his primacy, but you should not fail to accept him as securely and
everlastingly enthroned at the Paradise center of all things and as the
beneficent Father of all intelligent beings. There is but “one God and
Father of all, who is above all and in all,” “and he is before all
things, and in him all things consist.”(51.4)3:5.5 The
uncertainties of life and the vicissitudes of existence do not in any
manner contradict the concept of the universal sovereignty of God. All
evolutionary creature life is beset by certain inevitabilities. Consider the following:

(51.5)3:5.6 1. Is courage —
strength of character — desirable? Then must man be reared in an
environment which necessitates grappling with hardships and reacting to
disappointments.(51.6)3:5.7 2. Is altruism — service of one’s fellows — desirable? Then must life experience provide for encountering situations of social inequality.(51.7)3:5.8 3. Is hope —
the grandeur of trust — desirable? Then human existence must constantly
be confronted with insecurities and recurrent uncertainties.(51.8)3:5.9 4. Is faith —
the supreme assertion of human thought — desirable? Then must the mind
of man find itself in that troublesome predicament where it ever knows
less than it can believe.(51.9)3:5.10 5. Is the love of truth
and the willingness to go wherever it leads, desirable? Then must man
grow up in a world where error is present and falsehood always possible.(51.10)3:5.11 6. Is idealism —
the approaching concept of the divine — desirable? Then must man
struggle in an environment of relative goodness and beauty, surroundings
stimulative of the irrepressible reach for better things.(51.11)3:5.12 7. Is loyalty —
devotion to highest duty — desirable? Then must man carry on amid the
possibilities of betrayal and desertion. The valor of devotion to duty
consists in the implied danger of default.(51.12)3:5.13 8. Is unselfishness —
the spirit of self-forgetfulness — desirable? Then must mortal man live
face to face with the incessant clamoring of an inescapable self for
recognition and honor. Man could not dynamically choose the divine life
if there were no self-life to forsake. Man could never lay saving hold
on righteousness if there were no potential evil to exalt and
differentiate the good by contrast.(51.13)3:5.14 9. Is pleasure —
the satisfaction of happiness — desirable? Then must man live in a
world where the alternative of pain and the likelihood of suffering are
ever-present experiential possibilities.

(52.1)3:5.15 Throughout
the universe, every unit is regarded as a part of the whole. Survival of
the part is dependent on co-operation with the plan and purpose of the
whole, the wholehearted desire and perfect willingness to do the
Father’s divine will. The only evolutionary world without error (the
possibility of unwise judgment) would be a world without free
intelligence. In the Havona universe there are a billion perfect worlds
with their perfect inhabitants, but evolving man must be fallible if he
is to be free. Free and inexperienced intelligence cannot possibly at
first be uniformly wise. The possibility of mistaken judgment (evil)
becomes sin only when the human will consciously endorses and knowingly
embraces a deliberate immoral judgment.(52.2)3:5.16 The full
appreciation of truth, beauty, and goodness is inherent in the
perfection of the divine universe. The inhabitants of the Havona worlds
do not require the potential of relative value levels as a choice
stimulus; such perfect beings are able to identify and choose the good
in the absence of all contrastive and thought-compelling moral
situations. But all such perfect beings are, in moral nature and
spiritual status, what they are by virtue of the fact of existence. They
have experientially earned advancement only within their inherent
status. Mortal man earns even his status as an ascension candidate by
his own faith and hope. Everything divine which the human mind grasps
and the human soul acquires is an experiential attainment; it is a reality
of personal experience and is therefore a unique possession in contrast
to the inherent goodness and righteousness of the inerrant
personalities of Havona.(52.3)3:5.17 The
creatures of Havona are naturally brave, but they are not courageous in
the human sense. They are innately kind and considerate, but hardly
altruistic in the human way. They are expectant of a pleasant future,
but not hopeful in the exquisite manner of the trusting mortal of the
uncertain evolutionary spheres. They have faith in the stability of the
universe, but they are utter strangers to that saving faith whereby
mortal man climbs from the status of an animal up to the portals of
Paradise. They love the truth, but they know nothing of its soul-saving
qualities. They are idealists, but they were born that way; they are
wholly ignorant of the ecstasy of becoming such by exhilarating choice.
They are loyal, but they have never experienced the thrill of
wholehearted and intelligent devotion to duty in the face of temptation
to default. They are unselfish, but they never gained such levels of
experience by the magnificent conquest of a belligerent self. They enjoy
pleasure, but they do not comprehend the sweetness of the pleasure
escape from the pain potential.

6. The Father’s Primacy

(52.4)3:6.1 With divine
selflessness, consummate generosity, the Universal Father relinquishes
authority and delegates power, but he is still primal; his hand is on
the mighty lever of the circumstances of the universal realms; he has
reserved all final decisions and unerringly wields the all-powerful veto
scepter of his eternal purpose with unchallengeable authority over the
welfare and destiny of the outstretched, whirling, and ever-circling
creation.(52.5)3:6.2 The
sovereignty of God is unlimited; it is the fundamental fact of all
creation. The universe was not inevitable. The universe is not an
accident, neither is it self-existent. The universe is a work of
creation and is therefore wholly subject to the will of the Creator. The
will of God is divine truth, living love; therefore are the perfecting
creations of the evolutionary universes characterized by goodness —
nearness to divinity; by potential evil — remoteness from divinity.(53.1)3:6.3 All religious
philosophy, sooner or later, arrives at the concept of unified universe
rule, of one God. Universe causes cannot be lower than universe effects.
The source of the streams of universe life and of the cosmic mind must
be above the levels of their manifestation. The human mind cannot be
consistently explained in terms of the lower orders of existence. Man’s
mind can be truly comprehended only by recognizing the reality of higher
orders of thought and purposive will. Man as a moral being is
inexplicable unless the reality of the Universal Father is acknowledged.(53.2)3:6.4 The
mechanistic philosopher professes to reject the idea of a universal and
sovereign will, the very sovereign will whose activity in the
elaboration of universe laws he so deeply reverences. What unintended
homage the mechanist pays the law-Creator when he conceives such laws to
be self-acting and self-explanatory!(53.3)3:6.5 It is a great
blunder to humanize God, except in the concept of the indwelling Thought
Adjuster, but even that is not so stupid as completely to mechanize the idea of the First Great Source and Center.(53.4)3:6.6 Does the
Paradise Father suffer? I do not know. The Creator Sons most certainly
can and sometimes do, even as do mortals. The Eternal Son and the
Infinite Spirit suffer in a modified sense. I think the Universal Father
does, but I cannot understand how; perhaps through the
personality circuit or through the individuality of the Thought
Adjusters and other bestowals of his eternal nature. He has said of the
mortal races, “In all your afflictions I am afflicted.” He
unquestionably experiences a fatherly and sympathetic understanding; he
may truly suffer, but I do not comprehend the nature thereof.(53.5)3:6.7 The infinite
and eternal Ruler of the universe of universes is power, form, energy,
process, pattern, principle, presence, and idealized reality. But he is
more; he is personal; he exercises a sovereign will, experiences
self-consciousness of divinity, executes the mandates of a creative
mind, pursues the satisfaction of the realization of an eternal purpose,
and manifests a Father’s love and affection for his universe children.
And all these more personal traits of the Father can be better
understood by observing them as they were revealed in the bestowal life
of Michael, your Creator Son, while he was incarnated on Urantia.(53.6)3:6.8 God the Father
loves men; God the Son serves men; God the Spirit inspires the children
of the universe to the ever-ascending adventure of finding God the
Father by the ways ordained by God the Sons through the ministry of the
grace of God the Spirit.(53.7)3:6.9 [Being the
Divine Counselor assigned to the presentation of the revelation of the
Universal Father, I have continued with this statement of the attributes
of Deity.]

The Urantia Book

Paper 4

God’s Relation to the Universe

(54.1)4:0.1 THE Universal
Father has an eternal purpose pertaining to the material, intellectual,
and spiritual phenomena of the universe of universes, which he is
executing throughout all time. God created the universes of his own free
and sovereign will, and he created them in accordance with his all-wise
and eternal purpose. It is doubtful whether anyone except the Paradise
Deities and their highest associates really knows very much about the
eternal purpose of God. Even the exalted citizens of Paradise hold very
diverse opinions about the nature of the eternal purpose of the Deities.(54.2)4:0.2 It is easy to
deduce that the purpose in creating the perfect central universe of
Havona was purely the satisfaction of the divine nature. Havona may
serve as the pattern creation for all other universes and as the
finishing school for the pilgrims of time on their way to Paradise;
however, such a supernal creation must exist primarily for the pleasure
and satisfaction of the perfect and infinite Creators.(54.3)4:0.3 The amazing
plan for perfecting evolutionary mortals and, after their attainment of
Paradise and the Corps of the Finality, providing further training for
some undisclosed future work, does seem to be, at present, one of the
chief concerns of the seven superuniverses and their many subdivisions;
but this ascension scheme for spiritualizing and training the mortals of
time and space is by no means the exclusive occupation of the universe
intelligences. There are, indeed, many other fascinating pursuits which
occupy the time and enlist the energies of the celestial hosts.

1. The Universe Attitude of the Father

(54.4)4:1.1 For ages the
inhabitants of Urantia have misunderstood the providence of God. There
is a providence of divine outworking on your world, but it is not the
childish, arbitrary, and material ministry many mortals have conceived
it to be. The providence of God consists in the interlocking activities
of the celestial beings and the divine spirits who, in accordance with
cosmic law, unceasingly labor for the honor of God and for the spiritual
advancement of his universe children.(54.5)4:1.2 Can you not
advance in your concept of God’s dealing with man to that level where
you recognize that the watchword of the universe is progress?
Through long ages the human race has struggled to reach its present
position. Throughout all these millenniums Providence has been working
out the plan of progressive evolution. The two thoughts are not opposed
in practice, only in man’s mistaken concepts. Divine providence is never
arrayed in opposition to true human progress, either temporal or
spiritual. Providence is always consistent with the unchanging and
perfect nature of the supreme Lawmaker.(55.1)4:1.3 “God is
faithful” and “all his commandments are just.” “His faithfulness is
established in the very skies.” “Forever, O Lord, your word is settled
in heaven. Your faithfulness is to all generations; you have established
the earth and it abides.” “He is a faithful Creator.”(55.2)4:1.4 There is no
limitation of the forces and personalities which the Father may use to
uphold his purpose and sustain his creatures. “The eternal God is our
refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” “He who dwells in the
secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the
Almighty.” “Behold, he who keeps us shall neither slumber nor sleep.”
“We know that all things work together for good to those who love God,”
“for the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open
to their prayers.”(55.3)4:1.5 God upholds
“all things by the word of his power.” And when new worlds are born, he
“sends forth his Sons and they are created.” God not only creates, but
he “preserves them all.” God constantly upholds all things material and
all beings spiritual. The universes are eternally stable. There is
stability in the midst of apparent instability. There is an underlying
order and security in the midst of the energy upheavals and the physical
cataclysms of the starry realms.(55.4)4:1.6 The Universal
Father has not withdrawn from the management of the universes; he is not
an inactive Deity. If God should retire as the present upholder of all
creation, there would immediately occur a universal collapse. Except for
God, there would be no such thing as reality. At this very
moment, as during the remote ages of the past and in the eternal future,
God continues to uphold. The divine reach extends around the circle of
eternity. The universe is not wound up like a clock to run just so long
and then cease to function; all things are constantly being renewed. The
Father unceasingly pours forth energy, light, and life. The work of God
is literal as well as spiritual. “He stretches out the north over the
empty space and hangs the earth upon nothing.”(55.5)4:1.7 A being of my
order is able to discover ultimate harmony and to detect far-reaching
and profound co-ordination in the routine affairs of universe
administration. Much that seems disjointed and haphazard to the mortal
mind appears orderly and constructive to my understanding. But there is
very much going on in the universes that I do not fully comprehend. I
have long been a student of, and am more or less conversant with, the
recognized forces, energies, minds, morontias, spirits, and
personalities of the local universes and the superuniverses. I have a
general understanding of how these agencies and personalities operate,
and I am intimately familiar with the workings of the accredited spirit
intelligences of the grand universe. Notwithstanding my knowledge of the
phenomena of the universes, I am constantly confronted with cosmic
reactions which I cannot fully fathom. I am continually encountering
apparently fortuitous conspiracies of the interassociation of forces,
energies, intellects, and spirits, which I cannot satisfactorily
explain.(55.6)4:1.8 I am entirely
competent to trace out and to analyze the working of all phenomena
directly resulting from the functioning of the Universal Father, the
Eternal Son, the Infinite Spirit, and, to a large extent, the Isle of
Paradise. My perplexity is occasioned by encountering what appears to be
the performance of their mysterious co-ordinates, the three Absolutes
of potentiality. These Absolutes seem to supersede matter, to transcend
mind, and to supervene spirit. I am constantly confused and often
perplexed by my inability to comprehend these complex transactions which
I attribute to the presences and performances of the Unqualified
Absolute, the Deity Absolute, and the Universal Absolute.(56.1)4:1.9 These
Absolutes must be the not-fully-revealed presences abroad in the
universe which, in the phenomena of space potency and in the function of
other superultimates, render it impossible for physicists,
philosophers, or even religionists to predict with certainty as to just
how the primordials of force, concept, or spirit will respond to demands
made in a complex reality situation involving supreme adjustments and
ultimate values.(56.2)4:1.10 There is
also an organic unity in the universes of time and space which seems to
underlie the whole fabric of cosmic events. This living presence of the
evolving Supreme Being, this Immanence of the Projected Incomplete, is
inexplicably manifested ever and anon by what appears to be an amazingly
fortuitous co-ordination of apparently unrelated universe happenings.
This must be the function of Providence — the realm of the Supreme Being
and the Conjoint Actor.(56.3)4:1.11 I am
inclined to believe that it is this far-flung and generally
unrecognizable control of the co-ordination and interassociation of all
phases and forms of universe activity that causes such a variegated and
apparently hopelessly confused medley of physical, mental, moral, and
spiritual phenomena so unerringly to work out to the glory of God and
for the good of men and angels.(56.4)4:1.12 But in the
larger sense the apparent “accidents” of the cosmos are undoubtedly a
part of the finite drama of the time-space adventure of the Infinite in
his eternal manipulation of the Absolutes.

2. God and Nature

(56.5)4:2.1 Nature is in a
limited sense the physical habit of God. The conduct, or action, of God
is qualified and provisionally modified by the experimental plans and
the evolutionary patterns of a local universe, a constellation, a
system, or a planet. God acts in accordance with a well-defined,
unchanging, immutable law throughout the wide-spreading master universe;
but he modifies the patterns of his action so as to contribute to the
co-ordinate and balanced conduct of each universe, constellation,
system, planet, and personality in accordance with the local objects,
aims, and plans of the finite projects of evolutionary unfolding.(56.6)4:2.2 Therefore,
nature, as mortal man understands it, presents the underlying foundation
and fundamental background of a changeless Deity and his immutable
laws, modified by, fluctuating because of, and experiencing upheavals
through, the working of the local plans, purposes, patterns, and
conditions which have been inaugurated and are being carried out by the
local universe, constellation, system, and planetary forces and
personalities. For example: As God’s laws have been ordained in Nebadon,
they are modified by the plans established by the Creator Son and
Creative Spirit of this local universe; and in addition to all this the
operation of these laws has been further influenced by the errors,
defaults, and insurrections of certain beings resident upon your planet
and belonging to your immediate planetary system of Satania.(56.7)4:2.3 Nature is a
time-space resultant of two cosmic factors: first, the immutability,
perfection, and rectitude of Paradise Deity, and second, the
experimental plans, executive blunders, insurrectionary errors,
incompleteness of development, and imperfection of wisdom of the
extra-Paradise creatures, from the highest to the lowest. Nature
therefore carries a uniform, unchanging, majestic, and marvelous thread
of perfection from the circle of eternity; but in each universe, on each
planet, and in each individual life, this nature is modified,
qualified, and perchance marred by the acts, the mistakes, and the
disloyalties of the creatures of the evolutionary systems and universes;
and therefore must nature ever be of a changing mood, whimsical withal,
though stable underneath, and varied in accordance with the operating
procedures of a local universe.(57.1)4:2.4 Nature is the
perfection of Paradise divided by the incompletion, evil, and sin of the
unfinished universes. This quotient is thus expressive of both the
perfect and the partial, of both the eternal and the temporal.
Continuing evolution modifies nature by augmenting the content of
Paradise perfection and by diminishing the content of the evil, error,
and disharmony of relative reality.(57.2)4:2.5 God is not
personally present in nature or in any of the forces of nature, for the
phenomenon of nature is the superimposition of the imperfections of
progressive evolution and, sometimes, the consequences of
insurrectionary rebellion, upon the Paradise foundations of God’s
universal law. As it appears on such a world as Urantia, nature can
never be the adequate expression, the true representation, the faithful
portrayal, of an all-wise and infinite God.(57.3)4:2.6 Nature, on
your world, is a qualification of the laws of perfection by the
evolutionary plans of the local universe. What a travesty to worship
nature because it is in a limited, qualified sense pervaded by God;
because it is a phase of the universal and, therefore, divine power!
Nature also is a manifestation of the unfinished, the incomplete, the
imperfect outworkings of the development, growth, and progress of a
universe experiment in cosmic evolution.(57.4)4:2.7 The apparent
defects of the natural world are not indicative of any such
corresponding defects in the character of God. Rather are such observed
imperfections merely the inevitable stop-moments in the exhibition of
the ever-moving reel of infinity picturization. It is these very
defect-interruptions of perfection-continuity which make it possible for
the finite mind of material man to catch a fleeting glimpse of divine
reality in time and space. The material manifestations of divinity
appear defective to the evolutionary mind of man only because mortal man
persists in viewing the phenomena of nature through natural eyes, human
vision unaided by morontia mota or by revelation, its compensatory
substitute on the worlds of time.(57.5)4:2.8 And nature is
marred, her beautiful face is scarred, her features are seared, by the
rebellion, the misconduct, the misthinking of the myriads of creatures
who are a part of nature, but who have contributed to her disfigurement
in time. No, nature is not God. Nature is not an object of worship.

3. God’s Unchanging Character

(57.6)4:3.1 All too long
has man thought of God as one like himself. God is not, never was, and
never will be jealous of man or any other being in the universe of
universes. Knowing that the Creator Son intended man to be the
masterpiece of the planetary creation, to be the ruler of all the earth,
the sight of his being dominated by his own baser passions, the
spectacle of his bowing down before idols of wood, stone, gold, and
selfish ambition — these sordid scenes stir God and his Sons to be
jealous for man, but never of him.(57.7)4:3.2 The eternal
God is incapable of wrath and anger in the sense of these human emotions
and as man understands such reactions. These sentiments are mean and
despicable; they are hardly worthy of being called human, much less
divine; and such attitudes are utterly foreign to the perfect nature and
gracious character of the Universal Father.(58.1)4:3.3 Much, very
much, of the difficulty which Urantia mortals have in understanding God
is due to the far-reaching consequences of the Lucifer rebellion and the
Caligastia betrayal. On worlds not segregated by sin, the evolutionary
races are able to formulate far better ideas of the Universal Father;
they suffer less from confusion, distortion, and perversion of concept.(58.2)4:3.4 God repents of
nothing he has ever done, now does, or ever will do. He is all-wise as
well as all-powerful. Man’s wisdom grows out of the trials and errors of
human experience; God’s wisdom consists in the unqualified perfection
of his infinite universe insight, and this divine foreknowledge
effectively directs the creative free will.(58.3)4:3.5 The Universal
Father never does anything that causes subsequent sorrow or regret, but
the will creatures of the planning and making of his Creator
personalities in the outlying universes, by their unfortunate choosing,
sometimes occasion emotions of divine sorrow in the personalities of
their Creator parents. But though the Father neither makes mistakes,
harbors regrets, nor experiences sorrows, he is a being with a father’s
affection, and his heart is undoubtedly grieved when his children fail
to attain the spiritual levels they are capable of reaching with the
assistance which has been so freely provided by the spiritual-attainment
plans and the mortal-ascension policies of the universes.(58.4)4:3.6 The infinite
goodness of the Father is beyond the comprehension of the finite mind of
time; hence must there always be afforded a contrast with comparative
evil (not sin) for the effective exhibition of all phases of relative
goodness. Perfection of divine goodness can be discerned by mortal
imperfection of insight only because it stands in contrastive
association with relative imperfection in the relationships of time and
matter in the motions of space.(58.5)4:3.7 The character
of God is infinitely superhuman; therefore must such a nature of
divinity be personalized, as in the divine Sons, before it can even be
faith-grasped by the finite mind of man.

4. The Realization of God

(58.6)4:4.1 God is the
only stationary, self-contained, and changeless being in the whole
universe of universes, having no outside, no beyond, no past, and no
future. God is purposive energy (creative spirit) and absolute will, and
these are self-existent and universal.(58.7)4:4.2 Since God is
self-existent, he is absolutely independent. The very identity of God is
inimical to change. “I, the Lord, change not.” God is immutable; but
not until you achieve Paradise status can you even begin to understand
how God can pass from simplicity to complexity, from identity to
variation, from quiescence to motion, from infinity to finitude, from
the divine to the human, and from unity to duality and triunity. And God
can thus modify the manifestations of his absoluteness because divine
immutability does not imply immobility; God has will — he is will.(58.8)4:4.3 God is the
being of absolute self-determination; there are no limits to his
universe reactions save those which are self-imposed, and his freewill
acts are conditioned only by those divine qualities and perfect
attributes which inherently characterize his eternal nature. Therefore
is God related to the universe as the being of final goodness plus a
free will of creative infinity.(58.9)4:4.4 The
Father-Absolute is the creator of the central and perfect universe and
the Father of all other Creators. Personality, goodness, and numerous
other characteristics, God shares with man and other beings, but
infinity of will is his alone. God is limited in his creative acts only
by the sentiments of his eternal nature and by the dictates of his
infinite wisdom. God personally chooses only that which is infinitely
perfect, hence the supernal perfection of the central universe; and
while the Creator Sons fully share his divinity, even phases of his
absoluteness, they are not altogether limited by that finality of wisdom
which directs the Father’s infinity of will. Hence, in the Michael
order of sonship, creative free will becomes even more active, wholly
divine and well-nigh ultimate, if not absolute. The Father is infinite
and eternal, but to deny the possibility of his volitional
self-limitation amounts to a denial of this very concept of his
volitional absoluteness.(59.1)4:4.5 God’s
absoluteness pervades all seven levels of universe reality. And the
whole of this absolute nature is subject to the relationship of the
Creator to his universe creature family. Precision may characterize
trinitarian justice in the universe of universes, but in all his vast
family relationship with the creatures of time the God of universes is
governed by divine sentiment. First and last — eternally — the infinite God is a Father.
Of all the possible titles by which he might appropriately be known, I
have been instructed to portray the God of all creation as the Universal
Father.(59.2)4:4.6 In God the
Father freewill performances are not ruled by power, nor are they guided
by intellect alone; the divine personality is defined as consisting in
spirit and manifesting himself to the universes as love. Therefore, in
all his personal relations with the creature personalities of the
universes, the First Source and Center is always and consistently a
loving Father. God is a Father in the highest sense of the term. He is
eternally motivated by the perfect idealism of divine love, and that
tender nature finds its strongest expression and greatest satisfaction
in loving and being loved.(59.3)4:4.7 In science,
God is the First Cause; in religion, the universal and loving Father; in
philosophy, the one being who exists by himself, not dependent on any
other being for existence but beneficently conferring reality of
existence on all things and upon all other beings. But it requires
revelation to show that the First Cause of science and the self-existent
Unity of philosophy are the God of religion, full of mercy and goodness
and pledged to effect the eternal survival of his children on earth.(59.4)4:4.8 We crave the
concept of the Infinite, but we worship the experience-idea of God, our
anywhere and any-time capacity to grasp the personality and divinity
factors of our highest concept of Deity.(59.5)4:4.9 The
consciousness of a victorious human life on earth is born of that
creature faith which dares to challenge each recurring episode of
existence when confronted with the awful spectacle of human limitations,
by the unfailing declaration: Even if I cannot do this, there lives in
me one who can and will do it, a part of the Father-Absolute of the
universe of universes. And that is “the victory which overcomes the
world, even your faith.”

5. Erroneous Ideas of God

(59.6)4:5.1 Religious
tradition is the imperfectly preserved record of the experiences of the
God-knowing men of past ages, but such records are untrustworthy as
guides for religious living or as the source of true information about
the Universal Father. Such ancient beliefs have been invariably altered
by the fact that primitive man was a mythmaker.(60.1)4:5.2 One of the
greatest sources of confusion on Urantia concerning the nature of God
grows out of the failure of your sacred books clearly to distinguish
between the personalities of the Paradise Trinity and between Paradise
Deity and the local universe creators and administrators. During the
past dispensations of partial understanding, your priests and prophets
failed clearly to differentiate between Planetary Princes, System
Sovereigns, Constellation Fathers, Creator Sons, Superuniverse Rulers,
the Supreme Being, and the Universal Father. Many of the messages of
subordinate personalities, such as Life Carriers and various orders of
angels, have been, in your records, presented as coming from God
himself. Urantian religious thought still confuses the associate
personalities of Deity with the Universal Father himself, so that all
are included under one appellation.(60.2)4:5.3 The people of
Urantia continue to suffer from the influence of primitive concepts of
God. The gods who go on a rampage in the storm; who shake the earth in
their wrath and strike down men in their anger; who inflict their
judgments of displeasure in times of famine and flood — these are the
gods of primitive religion; they are not the Gods who live and rule the
universes. Such concepts are a relic of the times when men supposed that
the universe was under the guidance and domination of the whims of such
imaginary gods. But mortal man is beginning to realize that he lives in
a realm of comparative law and order as far as concerns the
administrative policies and conduct of the Supreme Creators and the
Supreme Controllers.(60.3)4:5.4 The barbarous
idea of appeasing an angry God, of propitiating an offended Lord, of
winning the favor of Deity through sacrifices and penance and even by
the shedding of blood, represents a religion wholly puerile and
primitive, a philosophy unworthy of an enlightened age of science and
truth. Such beliefs are utterly repulsive to the celestial beings and
the divine rulers who serve and reign in the universes. It is an affront
to God to believe, hold, or teach that innocent blood must be shed in
order to win his favor or to divert the fictitious divine wrath.(60.4)4:5.5 The Hebrews
believed that “without the shedding of blood there could be no remission
of sin.” They had not found deliverance from the old and pagan idea
that the Gods could not be appeased except by the sight of blood, though
Moses did make a distinct advance when he forbade human sacrifices and
substituted therefor, in the primitive minds of his childlike Bedouin
followers, the ceremonial sacrifice of animals.(60.5)4:5.6 The bestowal
of a Paradise Son on your world was inherent in the situation of closing
a planetary age; it was inescapable, and it was not made necessary for
the purpose of winning the favor of God. This bestowal also happened to
be the final personal act of a Creator Son in the long adventure of
earning the experiential sovereignty of his universe. What a travesty
upon the infinite character of God! this teaching that his fatherly
heart in all its austere coldness and hardness was so untouched by the
misfortunes and sorrows of his creatures that his tender mercies were
not forthcoming until he saw his blameless Son bleeding and dying upon
the cross of Calvary!(60.6)4:5.7 But the
inhabitants of Urantia are to find deliverance from these ancient errors
and pagan superstitions respecting the nature of the Universal Father.
The revelation of the truth about God is appearing, and the human race
is destined to know the Universal Father in all that beauty of character
and loveliness of attributes so magnificently portrayed by the Creator
Son who sojourned on Urantia as the Son of Man and the Son of God.(61.1)4:5.8 [Presented by a Divine Counselor of Uversa.]

The Urantia Book

Paper 5

God’s Relation to the Individual

(62.1)5:0.1 IF THE finite
mind of man is unable to comprehend how so great and so majestic a God
as the Universal Father can descend from his eternal abode in infinite
perfection to fraternize with the individual human creature, then must
such a finite intellect rest assurance of divine fellowship upon the
truth of the fact that an actual fragment of the living God resides
within the intellect of every normal-minded and morally conscious
Urantia mortal. The indwelling Thought Adjusters are a part of the
eternal Deity of the Paradise Father. Man does not have to go farther
than his own inner experience of the soul’s contemplation of this
spiritual-reality presence to find God and attempt communion with him.(62.2)5:0.2 God has
distributed the infinity of his eternal nature throughout the
existential realities of his six absolute co-ordinates, but he may, at
any time, make direct personal contact with any part or phase or kind of
creation through the agency of his prepersonal fragments. And the
eternal God has also reserved to himself the prerogative of bestowing
personality upon the divine Creators and the living creatures of the
universe of universes, while he has further reserved the prerogative of
maintaining direct and parental contact with all these personal beings
through the personality circuit.

1. The Approach to God

(62.3)5:1.1 The inability
of the finite creature to approach the infinite Father is inherent, not
in the Father’s aloofness, but in the finiteness and material
limitations of created beings. The magnitude of the spiritual difference
between the highest personality of universe existence and the lower
groups of created intelligences is inconceivable. Were it possible for
the lower orders of intelligence to be transported instantly into the
presence of the Father himself, they would not know they were there.
They would there be just as oblivious of the presence of the Universal
Father as where they now are. There is a long, long road ahead of mortal
man before he can consistently and within the realms of possibility ask
for safe conduct into the Paradise presence of the Universal Father.
Spiritually, man must be translated many times before he can attain a
plane that will yield the spiritual vision which will enable him to see
even any one of the Seven Master Spirits.(62.4)5:1.2 Our Father is
not in hiding; he is not in arbitrary seclusion. He has mobilized the
resources of divine wisdom in a never-ending effort to reveal himself to
the children of his universal domains. There is an infinite grandeur
and an inexpressible generosity connected with the majesty of his love
which causes him to yearn for the association of every created being who
can comprehend, love, or approach him; and it is, therefore, the
limitations inherent in you, inseparable from your finite personality
and material existence, that determine the time and place and
circumstances in which you may achieve the goal of the journey of mortal
ascension and stand in the presence of the Father at the center of all
things.(63.1)5:1.3 Although the
approach to the Paradise presence of the Father must await your
attainment of the highest finite levels of spirit progression, you
should rejoice in the recognition of the ever-present possibility of
immediate communion with the bestowal spirit of the Father so intimately
associated with your inner soul and your spiritualizing self.(63.2)5:1.4 The mortals of
the realms of time and space may differ greatly in innate abilities and
intellectual endowment, they may enjoy environments exceptionally
favorable to social advancement and moral progress, or they may suffer
from the lack of almost every human aid to culture and supposed
advancement in the arts of civilization; but the possibilities for
spiritual progress in the ascension career are equal to all; increasing
levels of spiritual insight and cosmic meanings are attained quite
independently of all such sociomoral differentials of the diversified
material environments on the evolutionary worlds.(63.3)5:1.5 However
Urantia mortals may differ in their intellectual, social, economic, and
even moral opportunities and endowments, forget not that their spiritual
endowment is uniform and unique. They all enjoy the same divine
presence of the gift from the Father, and they are all equally
privileged to seek intimate personal communion with this indwelling
spirit of divine origin, while they may all equally choose to accept the
uniform spiritual leading of these Mystery Monitors.(63.4)5:1.6 If mortal man
is wholeheartedly spiritually motivated, unreservedly consecrated to the
doing of the Father’s will, then, since he is so certainly and so
effectively spiritually endowed by the indwelling and divine Adjuster,
there cannot fail to materialize in that individual’s experience the
sublime consciousness of knowing God and the supernal assurance of
surviving for the purpose of finding God by the progressive experience
of becoming more and more like him.(63.5)5:1.7 Man is
spiritually indwelt by a surviving Thought Adjuster. If such a human
mind is sincerely and spiritually motivated, if such a human soul
desires to know God and become like him, honestly wants to do the
Father’s will, there exists no negative influence of mortal deprivation
nor positive power of possible interference which can prevent such a
divinely motivated soul from securely ascending to the portals of
Paradise.(63.6)5:1.8 The Father
desires all his creatures to be in personal communion with him. He has
on Paradise a place to receive all those whose survival status and
spiritual nature make possible such attainment. Therefore settle in your
philosophy now and forever: To each of you and to all of us, God is
approachable, the Father is attainable, the way is open; the forces of
divine love and the ways and means of divine administration are all
interlocked in an effort to facilitate the advancement of every worthy
intelligence of every universe to the Paradise presence of the Universal
Father.(63.7)5:1.9 The fact that
vast time is involved in the attainment of God makes the presence and
personality of the Infinite none the less real. Your ascension is a part
of the circuit of the seven superuniverses, and though you swing around
it countless times, you may expect, in spirit and in status, to be ever
swinging inward. You can depend upon being translated from sphere to
sphere, from the outer circuits ever nearer the inner center, and some
day, doubt not, you shall stand in the divine and central presence and
see him, figuratively speaking, face to face. It is a question of the
attainment of actual and literal spiritual levels; and these spiritual
levels are attainable by any being who has been indwelt by a Mystery
Monitor, and who has subsequently eternally fused with that Thought
Adjuster.(64.1)5:1.10 The Father
is not in spiritual hiding, but so many of his creatures have hidden
themselves away in the mists of their own willful decisions and for the
time being have separated themselves from the communion of his spirit
and the spirit of his Son by the choosing of their own perverse ways and
by the indulgence of the self-assertiveness of their intolerant minds
and unspiritual natures.(64.2)5:1.11 Mortal man
may draw near God and may repeatedly forsake the divine will so long as
the power of choice remains. Man’s final doom is not sealed until he has
lost the power to choose the Father’s will. There is never a closure of
the Father’s heart to the need and the petition of his children. Only
do his offspring close their hearts forever to the Father’s drawing
power when they finally and forever lose the desire to do his divine
will — to know him and to be like him. Likewise is man’s eternal destiny
assured when Adjuster fusion proclaims to the universe that such an
ascender has made the final and irrevocable choice to live the Father’s
will.(64.3)5:1.12 The great
God makes direct contact with mortal man and gives a part of his
infinite and eternal and incomprehensible self to live and dwell within
him. God has embarked upon the eternal adventure with man. If you yield
to the leadings of the spiritual forces in you and around you, you
cannot fail to attain the high destiny established by a loving God as
the universe goal of his ascendant creatures from the evolutionary
worlds of space.

2. The Presence of God

(64.4)5:2.1 The physical
presence of the Infinite is the reality of the material universe. The
mind presence of Deity must be determined by the depth of individual
intellectual experience and by the evolutionary personality level. The
spiritual presence of Divinity must of necessity be differential in the
universe. It is determined by the spiritual capacity of receptivity and
by the degree of the consecration of the creature’s will to the doing of
the divine will.(64.5)5:2.2 God lives in
every one of his spirit-born sons. The Paradise Sons always have access
to the presence of God, “the right hand of the Father,” and all of his
creature personalities have access to the “bosom of the Father.” This
refers to the personality circuit, whenever, wherever, and however
contacted, or otherwise entails personal, self-conscious contact and
communion with the Universal Father, whether at the central abode or at
some other designated place, as on one of the seven sacred spheres of
Paradise.(64.6)5:2.3 The divine
presence cannot, however, be discovered anywhere in nature or even in
the lives of God-knowing mortals so fully and so certainly as in your
attempted communion with the indwelling Mystery Monitor, the Paradise
Thought Adjuster. What a mistake to dream of God far off in the skies
when the spirit of the Universal Father lives within your own mind!(64.7)5:2.4 It is because
of this God fragment that indwells you that you can hope, as you
progress in harmonizing with the Adjuster’s spiritual leadings, more
fully to discern the presence and transforming power of those other
spiritual influences that surround you and impinge upon you but do not
function as an integral part of you. The fact that you are not
intellectually conscious of close and intimate contact with the
indwelling Adjuster does not in the least disprove such an exalted
experience. The proof of fraternity with the divine Adjuster consists
wholly in the nature and extent of the fruits of the spirit which are
yielded in the life experience of the individual believer. “By their fruits you shall know them.”(65.1)5:2.5 It is
exceedingly difficult for the meagerly spiritualized, material mind of
mortal man to experience marked consciousness of the spirit activities
of such divine entities as the Paradise Adjusters. As the soul of joint
mind and Adjuster creation becomes increasingly existent, there also
evolves a new phase of soul consciousness which is capable of
experiencing the presence, and of recognizing the spirit leadings and
other supermaterial activities, of the Mystery Monitors.(65.2)5:2.6 The entire
experience of Adjuster communion is one involving moral status, mental
motivation, and spiritual experience. The self-realization of such an
achievement is mainly, though not exclusively, limited to the realms of
soul consciousness, but the proofs are forthcoming and abundant in the
manifestation of the fruits of the spirit in the lives of all such
inner-spirit contactors.

3. True Worship

(65.3)5:3.1 Though the
Paradise Deities, from the universe standpoint, are as one, in their
spiritual relations with such beings as inhabit Urantia they are also
three distinct and separate persons. There is a difference between the
Godheads in the matter of personal appeals, communion, and other
intimate relations. In the highest sense, we worship the Universal
Father and him only. True, we can and do worship the Father as he is
manifested in his Creator Sons, but it is the Father, directly or
indirectly, who is worshiped and adored.(65.4)5:3.2 Supplications
of all kinds belong to the realm of the Eternal Son and the Son’s
spiritual organization. Prayers, all formal communications, everything
except adoration and worship of the Universal Father, are matters that
concern a local universe; they do not ordinarily proceed out of the
realm of the jurisdiction of a Creator Son. But worship is undoubtedly
encircuited and dispatched to the person of the Creator by the function
of the Father’s personality circuit. We further believe that such
registry of the homage of an Adjuster-indwelt creature is facilitated by
the Father’s spirit presence. There exists a tremendous amount of
evidence to substantiate such a belief, and I know that all orders of
Father fragments are empowered to register the bona fide adoration of
their subjects acceptably in the presence of the Universal Father. The
Adjusters undoubtedly also utilize direct prepersonal channels of
communication with God, and they are likewise able to utilize the
spirit-gravity circuits of the Eternal Son.(65.5)5:3.3 Worship is for
its own sake; prayer embodies a self- or creature-interest element;
that is the great difference between worship and prayer. There is
absolutely no self-request or other element of personal interest in true
worship; we simply worship God for what we comprehend him to be.
Worship asks nothing and expects nothing for the worshiper. We do not
worship the Father because of anything we may derive from such
veneration; we render such devotion and engage in such worship as a
natural and spontaneous reaction to the recognition of the Father’s
matchless personality and because of his lovable nature and adorable
attributes.(65.6)5:3.4 The moment the
element of self-interest intrudes upon worship, that instant devotion
translates from worship to prayer and more appropriately should be
directed to the person of the Eternal Son or the Creator Son. But in
practical religious experience there exists no reason why prayer should
not be addressed to God the Father as a part of true worship.(66.1)5:3.5 When you deal
with the practical affairs of your daily life, you are in the hands of
the spirit personalities having origin in the Third Source and Center;
you are co-operating with the agencies of the Conjoint Actor. And so it
is: You worship God; pray to, and commune with, the Son; and work out
the details of your earthly sojourn in connection with the intelligences
of the Infinite Spirit operating on your world and throughout your
universe.(66.2)5:3.6 The Creator or
Sovereign Sons who preside over the destinies of the local universes
stand in the place of both the Universal Father and the Eternal Son of
Paradise. These Universe Sons receive, in the name of the Father, the
adoration of worship and give ear to the pleas of their petitioning
subjects throughout their respective creations. To the children of a
local universe a Michael Son is, to all practical intents and purposes,
God. He is the local universe personification of the Universal Father
and the Eternal Son. The Infinite Spirit maintains personal contact with
the children of these realms through the Universe Spirits, the
administrative and creative associates of the Paradise Creator Sons.(66.3)5:3.7 Sincere
worship connotes the mobilization of all the powers of the human
personality under the dominance of the evolving soul and subject to the
divine directionization of the associated Thought Adjuster. The mind of
material limitations can never become highly conscious of the real
significance of true worship. Man’s realization of the reality of the
worship experience is chiefly determined by the developmental status of
his evolving immortal soul. The spiritual growth of the soul takes place
wholly independently of the intellectual self-consciousness.(66.4)5:3.8 The worship
experience consists in the sublime attempt of the betrothed Adjuster to
communicate to the divine Father the inexpressible longings and the
unutterable aspirations of the human soul — the conjoint creation of the
God-seeking mortal mind and the God-revealing immortal Adjuster.
Worship is, therefore, the act of the material mind’s assenting to the
attempt of its spiritualizing self, under the guidance of the associated
spirit, to communicate with God as a faith son of the Universal Father.
The mortal mind consents to worship; the immortal soul craves and
initiates worship; the divine Adjuster presence conducts such worship in
behalf of the mortal mind and the evolving immortal soul. True worship,
in the last analysis, becomes an experience realized on four cosmic
levels: the intellectual, the morontial, the spiritual, and the personal
— the consciousness of mind, soul, and spirit, and their unification in
personality.

4. God in Religion

(66.5)5:4.1 The morality of the religions of evolution drives men forward in the God quest by the motive power of fear. The religions of revelation allure
men to seek for a God of love because they crave to become like him.
But religion is not merely a passive feeling of “absolute dependence”
and “surety of survival”; it is a living and dynamic experience of
divinity attainment predicated on humanity service.(66.6)5:4.2 The great and
immediate service of true religion is the establishment of an enduring
unity in human experience, a lasting peace and a profound assurance.
With primitive man, even polytheism is a relative unification of the
evolving concept of Deity; polytheism is monotheism in the making.
Sooner or later, God is destined to be comprehended as the reality of
values, the substance of meanings, and the life of truth.(67.1)5:4.3 God is not only the determiner of destiny; he is
man’s eternal destination. All nonreligious human activities seek to
bend the universe to the distorting service of self; the truly religious
individual seeks to identify the self with the universe and then to
dedicate the activities of this unified self to the service of the
universe family of fellow beings, human and superhuman.(67.2)5:4.4 The domains of
philosophy and art intervene between the nonreligious and the religious
activities of the human self. Through art and philosophy the
material-minded man is inveigled into the contemplation of the spiritual
realities and universe values of eternal meanings.(67.3)5:4.5 All religions
teach the worship of Deity and some doctrine of human salvation. The
Buddhist religion promises salvation from suffering, unending peace; the
Jewish religion promises salvation from difficulties, prosperity
predicated on righteousness; the Greek religion promised salvation from
disharmony, ugliness, by the realization of beauty; Christianity
promises salvation from sin, sanctity; Mohammedanism provides
deliverance from the rigorous moral standards of Judaism and
Christianity. The religion of Jesus is salvation from self, deliverance from the evils of creature isolation in time and in eternity.(67.4)5:4.6 The Hebrews
based their religion on goodness; the Greeks on beauty; both religions
sought truth. Jesus revealed a God of love, and love is all-embracing of
truth, beauty, and goodness.(67.5)5:4.7 The
Zoroastrians had a religion of morals; the Hindus a religion of
metaphysics; the Confucianists a religion of ethics. Jesus lived a
religion of service. All these religions are of value in that
they are valid approaches to the religion of Jesus. Religion is destined
to become the reality of the spiritual unification of all that is good,
beautiful, and true in human experience.(67.6)5:4.8 The Greek
religion had a watchword “Know yourself”; the Hebrews centered their
teaching on “Know your God”; the Christians preach a gospel aimed at a
“knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ”; Jesus proclaimed the good news of “knowing God, and yourself as a son of God.”
These differing concepts of the purpose of religion determine the
individual’s attitude in various life situations and foreshadow the
depth of worship and the nature of his personal habits of prayer. The
spiritual status of any religion may be determined by the nature of its
prayers.(67.7)5:4.9 The concept of
a semihuman and jealous God is an inevitable transition between
polytheism and sublime monotheism. An exalted anthropomorphism is the
highest attainment level of purely evolutionary religion. Christianity
has elevated the concept of anthropomorphism from the ideal of the human
to the transcendent and divine concept of the person of the glorified
Christ. And this is the highest anthropomorphism that man can ever
conceive.(67.8)5:4.10 The Christian concept of God is an attempt to combine three separate teachings:

(67.9)5:4.11 1. The Hebrew concept — God as a vindicator of moral values, a righteous God.(67.10)5:4.12 2. The Greek concept — God as a unifier, a God of wisdom.(68.1)5:4.13 3. Jesus’ concept — God as a living friend, a loving Father, the divine presence.

(68.2)5:4.14 It must
therefore be evident that composite Christian theology encounters great
difficulty in attaining consistency. This difficulty is further
aggravated by the fact that the doctrines of early Christianity were
generally based on the personal religious experience of three different
persons: Philo of Alexandria, Jesus of Nazareth, and Paul of Tarsus.(68.3)5:4.15 In the study
of the religious life of Jesus, view him positively. Think not so much
of his sinlessness as of his righteousness, his loving service. Jesus
upstepped the passive love disclosed in the Hebrew concept of the
heavenly Father to the higher active and creature-loving affection of a God who is the Father of every individual, even of the wrongdoer.

5. The Consciousness of God

(68.4)5:5.1 Morality has
its origin in the reason of self-consciousness; it is superanimal but
wholly evolutionary. Human evolution embraces in its unfolding all
endowments antecedent to the bestowal of the Adjusters and to the
pouring out of the Spirit of Truth. But the attainment of levels of
morality does not deliver man from the real struggles of mortal living.
Man’s physical environment entails the battle for existence; the social
surroundings necessitate ethical adjustments; the moral situations
require the making of choices in the highest realms of reason; the
spiritual experience (having realized God) demands that man find him and
sincerely strive to be like him.(68.5)5:5.2 Religion is
not grounded in the facts of science, the obligations of society, the
assumptions of philosophy, or the implied duties of morality. Religion
is an independent realm of human response to life situations and is
unfailingly exhibited at all stages of human development which are
postmoral. Religion may permeate all four levels of the realization of
values and the enjoyment of universe fellowship: the physical or
material level of self-preservation; the social or emotional level of
fellowship; the moral or duty level of reason; the spiritual level of
the consciousness of universe fellowship through divine worship.(68.6)5:5.3 The
fact-seeking scientist conceives of God as the First Cause, a God of
force. The emotional artist sees God as the ideal of beauty, a God of
aesthetics. The reasoning philosopher is sometimes inclined to posit a
God of universal unity, even a pantheistic Deity. The religionist of
faith believes in a God who fosters survival, the Father in heaven, the
God of love.(68.7)5:5.4 Moral conduct
is always an antecedent of evolved religion and a part of even revealed
religion, but never the whole of religious experience. Social service is
the result of moral thinking and religious living. Morality does not
biologically lead to the higher spiritual levels of religious
experience. The adoration of the abstract beautiful is not the worship
of God; neither is exaltation of nature nor the reverence of unity the
worship of God.(68.8)5:5.5 Evolutionary
religion is the mother of the science, art, and philosophy which
elevated man to the level of receptivity to revealed religion, including
the bestowal of Adjusters and the coming of the Spirit of Truth. The
evolutionary picture of human existence begins and ends with religion,
albeit very different qualities of religion, one evolutional and
biological, the other revelational and periodical. And so, while
religion is normal and natural to man, it is also optional. Man does not
have to be religious against his will.(69.1)5:5.6 Religious
experience, being essentially spiritual, can never be fully understood
by the material mind; hence the function of theology, the psychology of
religion. The essential doctrine of the human realization of God creates
a paradox in finite comprehension. It is well-nigh impossible for human
logic and finite reason to harmonize the concept of divine immanence,
God within and a part of every individual, with the idea of God’s
transcendence, the divine domination of the universe of universes. These
two essential concepts of Deity must be unified in the faith-grasp of
the concept of the transcendence of a personal God and in the
realization of the indwelling presence of a fragment of that God in
order to justify intelligent worship and validate the hope of
personality survival. The difficulties and paradoxes of religion are
inherent in the fact that the realities of religion are utterly beyond
the mortal capacity for intellectual comprehension.(69.2)5:5.7 Mortal man secures three great satisfactions from religious experience, even in the days of his temporal sojourn on earth:

(69.3)5:5.8 1. Intellectually he acquires the satisfactions of a more unified human consciousness.(69.4)5:5.9 2. Philosophically he enjoys the substantiation of his ideals of moral values.(69.5)5:5.10 3. Spiritually he thrives in the experience of divine companionship, in the spiritual satisfactions of true worship.

(69.6)5:5.11
God-consciousness, as it is experienced by an evolving mortal of the
realms, must consist of three varying factors, three differential levels
of reality realization. There is first the mind consciousness — the
comprehension of the idea of God. Then follows the soul consciousness — the realization of the ideal of God. Last, dawns the spirit consciousness — the realization of the spirit reality
of God. By the unification of these factors of the divine realization,
no matter how incomplete, the mortal personality at all times
overspreads all conscious levels with a realization of the personality of God. In those mortals who have attained the Corps of the Finality all this will in time lead to the realization of the supremacy of God and may subsequently eventuate in the realization of the ultimacy of God, some phase of the absonite superconsciousness of the Paradise Father.(69.7)5:5.12 The
experience of God-consciousness remains the same from generation to
generation, but with each advancing epoch in human knowledge the
philosophic concept and the theologic definitions of God must
change. God-knowingness, religious consciousness, is a universe reality,
but no matter how valid (real) religious experience is, it must be
willing to subject itself to intelligent criticism and reasonable
philosophic interpretation; it must not seek to be a thing apart in the
totality of human experience.(69.8)5:5.13 Eternal
survival of personality is wholly dependent on the choosing of the
mortal mind, whose decisions determine the survival potential of the
immortal soul. When the mind believes God and the soul knows God, and
when, with the fostering Adjuster, they all desire God, then is
survival assured. Limitations of intellect, curtailment of education,
deprivation of culture, impoverishment of social status, even
inferiority of the human standards of morality resulting from the
unfortunate lack of educational, cultural, and social advantages, cannot
invalidate the presence of the divine spirit in such unfortunate and
humanly handicapped but believing individuals. The indwelling of the
Mystery Monitor constitutes the inception and insures the possibility of
the potential of growth and survival of the immortal soul.(70.1)5:5.14 The ability
of mortal parents to procreate is not predicated on their educational,
cultural, social, or economic status. The union of the parental factors
under natural conditions is quite sufficient to initiate offspring. A
human mind discerning right and wrong and possessing the capacity to
worship God, in union with a divine Adjuster, is all that is required in
that mortal to initiate and foster the production of his immortal soul
of survival qualities if such a spirit-endowed individual seeks God and
sincerely desires to become like him, honestly elects to do the will of
the Father in heaven.

6. The God of Personality

(70.2)5:6.1 The Universal
Father is the God of personalities. The domain of universe personality,
from the lowest mortal and material creature of personality status to
the highest persons of creator dignity and divine status, has its center
and circumference in the Universal Father. God the Father is the
bestower and the conservator of every personality. And the Paradise
Father is likewise the destiny of all those finite personalities who
wholeheartedly choose to do the divine will, those who love God and long
to be like him.(70.3)5:6.2 Personality is
one of the unsolved mysteries of the universes. We are able to form
adequate concepts of the factors entering into the make-up of various
orders and levels of personality, but we do not fully comprehend the
real nature of the personality itself. We clearly perceive the numerous
factors which, when put together, constitute the vehicle for human
personality, but we do not fully comprehend the nature and significance
of such a finite personality.(70.4)5:6.3 Personality is
potential in all creatures who possess a mind endowment ranging from
the minimum of self-consciousness to the maximum of God-consciousness.
But mind endowment alone is not personality, neither is spirit nor
physical energy. Personality is that quality and value in cosmic reality
which is exclusively bestowed by God the Father upon these living
systems of the associated and co-ordinated energies of matter, mind, and
spirit. Neither is personality a progressive achievement. Personality
may be material or spiritual, but there either is personality or there
is no personality. The other-than-personal never attains the level of
the personal except by the direct act of the Paradise Father.(70.5)5:6.4 The bestowal
of personality is the exclusive function of the Universal Father, the
personalization of the living energy systems which he endows with the
attributes of relative creative consciousness and the freewill control
thereof. There is no personality apart from God the Father, and no
personality exists except for God the Father. The fundamental attributes
of human selfhood, as well as the absolute Adjuster nucleus of the
human personality, are the bestowals of the Universal Father, acting in
his exclusively personal domain of cosmic ministry.(70.6)5:6.5 The Adjusters
of prepersonal status indwell numerous types of mortal creatures, thus
insuring that these same beings may survive mortal death to personalize
as morontia creatures with the potential of ultimate spirit attainment.
For, when such a creature mind of personality endowment is indwelt by a
fragment of the spirit of the eternal God, the prepersonal bestowal of
the personal Father, then does this finite personality possess the
potential of the divine and the eternal and aspire to a destiny akin to
the Ultimate, even reaching out for a realization of the Absolute.(71.1)5:6.6 Capacity for
divine personality is inherent in the prepersonal Adjuster; capacity for
human personality is potential in the cosmic-mind endowment of the
human being. But the experiential personality of mortal man is not
observable as an active and functional reality until after the material
life vehicle of the mortal creature has been touched by the liberating
divinity of the Universal Father, being thus launched upon the seas of
experience as a self-conscious and a (relatively) self-determinative and
self-creative personality. The material self is truly and unqualifiedly personal.(71.2)5:6.7 The material
self has personality and identity, temporal identity; the prepersonal
spirit Adjuster also has identity, eternal identity. This material
personality and this spirit prepersonality are capable of so uniting
their creative attributes as to bring into existence the surviving
identity of the immortal soul.(71.3)5:6.8 Having thus
provided for the growth of the immortal soul and having liberated man’s
inner self from the fetters of absolute dependence on antecedent
causation, the Father stands aside. Now, man having thus been liberated
from the fetters of causation response, at least as pertains to eternal
destiny, and provision having been made for the growth of the immortal
self, the soul, it remains for man himself to will the creation or to
inhibit the creation of this surviving and eternal self which is his for
the choosing. No other being, force, creator, or agency in all the wide
universe of universes can interfere to any degree with the absolute
sovereignty of the mortal free will, as it operates within the realms of
choice, regarding the eternal destiny of the personality of the
choosing mortal. As pertains to eternal survival, God has decreed the
sovereignty of the material and mortal will, and that decree is
absolute.(71.4)5:6.9 The bestowal
of creature personality confers relative liberation from slavish
response to antecedent causation, and the personalities of all such
moral beings, evolutionary or otherwise, are centered in the personality
of the Universal Father. They are ever drawn towards his Paradise
presence by that kinship of being which constitutes the vast and
universal family circle and fraternal circuit of the eternal God. There
is a kinship of divine spontaneity in all personality.(71.5)5:6.10 The
personality circuit of the universe of universes is centered in the
person of the Universal Father, and the Paradise Father is personally
conscious of, and in personal touch with, all personalities of all
levels of self-conscious existence. And this personality consciousness
of all creation exists independently of the mission of the Thought
Adjusters.(71.6)5:6.11 As all
gravity is circuited in the Isle of Paradise, as all mind is circuited
in the Conjoint Actor and all spirit in the Eternal Son, so is all
personality circuited in the personal presence of the Universal Father,
and this circuit unerringly transmits the worship of all personalities
to the Original and Eternal Personality.(71.7)5:6.12 Concerning
those personalities who are not Adjuster indwelt: The attribute of
choice-liberty is also bestowed by the Universal Father, and such
persons are likewise embraced in the great circuit of divine love, the
personality circuit of the Universal Father. God provides for the
sovereign choice of all true personalities. No personal creature can be
coerced into the eternal adventure; the portal of eternity opens only in
response to the freewill choice of the freewill sons of the God of free
will.(72.1)5:6.13 And this
represents my efforts to present the relation of the living God to the
children of time. And when all is said and done, I can do nothing more
helpful than to reiterate that God is your universe Father, and that you
are all his planetary children.(72.2)5:6.14 [This is the fifth and last of the series presenting the narrative of the Universal Father by a Divine Counselor of Uversa.]

The Urantia Book

Paper 6

The Eternal Son

(73.1)6:0.1 THE Eternal
Son is the perfect and final expression of the “first” personal and
absolute concept of the Universal Father. Accordingly, whenever and
however the Father personally and absolutely expresses himself, he does
so through his Eternal Son, who ever has been, now is, and ever will be,
the living and divine Word. And this Eternal Son is residential at the
center of all things, in association with, and immediately enshrouding
the personal presence of, the Eternal and Universal Father.(73.2)6:0.2 We speak of
God’s “first” thought and allude to an impossible time origin of the
Eternal Son for the purpose of gaining access to the thought channels of
the human intellect. Such distortions of language represent our best
efforts at contact-compromise with the time-bound minds of mortal
creatures. In the sequential sense the Universal Father never could have
had a first thought, nor could the Eternal Son ever have had a
beginning. But I was instructed to portray the realities of eternity to
the time-limited minds of mortals by such symbols of thought and to
designate the relationships of eternity by such time concepts of
sequentiality.(73.3)6:0.3 The Eternal
Son is the spiritual personalization of the Paradise Father’s universal
and infinite concept of divine reality, unqualified spirit, and absolute
personality. And thereby does the Son constitute the divine revelation
of the creator identity of the Universal Father. The perfect personality
of the Son discloses that the Father is actually the eternal and
universal source of all the meanings and values of the spiritual, the
volitional, the purposeful, and the personal.(73.4)6:0.4 In an effort
to enable the finite mind of time to form some sequential concept of the
relationships of the eternal and infinite beings of the Paradise
Trinity, we utilize such license of conception as to refer to the
“Father’s first personal, universal, and infinite concept.” It is
impossible for me to convey to the human mind any adequate idea of the
eternal relations of the Deities; therefore do I employ such terms as
will afford the finite mind something of an idea of the relationship of
these eternal beings in the subsequent eras of time. We believe the Son
sprang from the Father; we are taught that both are unqualifiedly
eternal. It is apparent, therefore, that no time creature can ever fully
comprehend this mystery of a Son who is derived from the Father, and
yet who is co-ordinately eternal with the Father himself.

(73.5)6:1.1 The Eternal
Son is the original and only-begotten Son of God. He is God the Son, the
Second Person of Deity and the associate creator of all things. As the
Father is the First Great Source and Center, so the Eternal Son is the
Second Great Source and Center.(74.1)6:1.2 The Eternal
Son is the spiritual center and the divine administrator of the
spiritual government of the universe of universes. The Universal Father
is first a creator and then a controller; the Eternal Son is first a
cocreator and then a spiritual administrator. “God is spirit,”
and the Son is a personal revelation of that spirit. The First Source
and Center is the Volitional Absolute; the Second Source and Center is
the Personality Absolute.(74.2)6:1.3 The Universal
Father never personally functions as a creator except in conjunction
with the Son or with the co-ordinate action of the Son. Had the New
Testament writer referred to the Eternal Son, he would have uttered the
truth when he wrote: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by him, and without
him was not anything made that was made.”(74.3)6:1.4 When a Son of
the Eternal Son appeared on Urantia, those who fraternized with this
divine being in human form alluded to him as “He who was from the
beginning, whom we have heard, whom we have seen with our eyes, whom we
have looked upon, and our hands have handled, even the Word of life.”
And this bestowal Son came forth from the Father just as truly as did
the Original Son, as is suggested in one of his earthly prayers: “And now, O my Father, glorify me with your own self, with the glory which I had with you before this world was.”(74.4)6:1.5 The Eternal
Son is known by different names in various universes. In the central
universe he is known as the Co-ordinate Source, the Cocreator, and the
Associate Absolute. On Uversa, the headquarters of the superuniverse, we
designate the Son as the Co-ordinate Spirit Center and as the Eternal
Spirit Administrator. On Salvington, the headquarters of your local
universe, this Son is of record as the Second Eternal Source and Center.
The Melchizedeks speak of him as the Son of Sons. On your world, but
not in your system of inhabited spheres, this Original Son has been
confused with a co-ordinate Creator Son, Michael of Nebadon, who
bestowed himself upon the mortal races of Urantia.(74.5)6:1.6 Although any
of the Paradise Sons may fittingly be called Sons of God, we are in the
habit of reserving the designation “the Eternal Son” for this Original
Son, the Second Source and Center, cocreator with the Universal Father
of the central universe of power and perfection and cocreator of all
other divine Sons who spring from the infinite Deities.

(74.6)6:2.1 The Eternal
Son is just as changeless and infinitely dependable as the Universal
Father. He is also just as spiritual as the Father, just as truly an
unlimited spirit. To you of lowly origin the Son would appear to be more
personal since he is one step nearer you in approachability than is the
Universal Father.(74.7)6:2.2 The Eternal Son is the eternal Word of God. He is wholly like the Father; in fact, the Eternal Son is
God the Father personally manifest to the universe of universes. And
thus it was and is and forever will be true of the Eternal Son and of
all the co-ordinate Creator Sons: “He who has seen the Son has seen the
Father.”(74.8)6:2.3 In nature the
Son is wholly like the spirit Father. When we worship the Universal
Father, actually we at the same time worship God the Son and God the
Spirit. God the Son is just as divinely real and eternal in nature as
God the Father.(75.1)6:2.4 The Son not
only possesses all the Father’s infinite and transcendent righteousness,
but the Son is also reflective of all the Father’s holiness of
character. The Son shares the Father’s perfection and jointly shares the
responsibility of aiding all creatures of imperfection in their
spiritual efforts to attain divine perfection.(75.2)6:2.5 The Eternal Son possesses all the Father’s character of divinity and attributes of spirituality. The Son is
the fullness of God’s absoluteness in personality and spirit, and these
qualities the Son reveals in his personal management of the spiritual
government of the universe of universes.(75.3)6:2.6 God is,
indeed, a universal spirit; God is spirit; and this spirit nature of the
Father is focalized and personalized in the Deity of the Eternal Son.
In the Son all spiritual characteristics are apparently greatly enhanced
by differentiation from the universality of the First Source and
Center. And as the Father shares his spirit nature with the Son, so do
they together just as fully and unreservedly share the divine spirit
with the Conjoint Actor, the Infinite Spirit.(75.4)6:2.7 In the love of truth and in the creation of beauty the Father and the Son are equal except that the Son appears to devote himself more to the realization of the exclusively spiritual beauty of universal values.(75.5)6:2.8 In divine
goodness I discern no difference between the Father and the Son. The
Father loves his universe children as a father; the Eternal Son looks
upon all creatures both as father and as brother.

(75.6)6:3.1 The Son
shares the justice and righteousness of the Trinity but overshadows
these divinity traits by the infinite personalization of the Father’s
love and mercy; the Son is the revelation of divine love to the
universes. As God is love, so the Son is mercy. The Son cannot love more
than the Father, but he can show mercy to creatures in one additional
way, for he not only is a primal creator like the Father, but he is also
the Eternal Son of that same Father, thereby sharing in the sonship
experience of all other sons of the Universal Father.(75.7)6:3.2 The Eternal
Son is the great mercy minister to all creation. Mercy is the essence of
the Son’s spiritual character. The mandates of the Eternal Son, as they
go forth over the spirit circuits of the Second Source and Center, are
keyed in tones of mercy.(75.8)6:3.3 To comprehend the love of the Eternal Son, you must first perceive its divine source, the Father, who is
love, and then behold the unfolding of this infinite affection in the
far-flung ministry of the Infinite Spirit and his almost limitless host
of ministering personalities.(75.9)6:3.4 The ministry
of the Eternal Son is devoted to the revelation of the God of love to
the universe of universes. This divine Son is not engaged in the ignoble
task of trying to persuade his gracious Father to love his lowly
creatures and to show mercy to the wrongdoers of time. How wrong to
envisage the Eternal Son as appealing to the Universal Father to show
mercy to his lowly creatures on the material worlds of space! Such
concepts of God are crude and grotesque. Rather should you realize that
all the merciful ministrations of the Sons of God are a direct
revelation of the Father’s heart of universal love and infinite
compassion. The Father’s love is the real and eternal source of the
Son’s mercy.(75.10)6:3.5 God is love,
the Son is mercy. Mercy is applied love, the Father’s love in action in
the person of his Eternal Son. The love of this universal Son is
likewise universal. As love is comprehended on a sex planet, the love of
God is more comparable to the love of a father, while the love of the
Eternal Son is more like the affection of a mother. Crude, indeed, are
such illustrations, but I employ them in the hope of conveying to the
human mind the thought that there is a difference, not in divine content
but in quality and technique of expression, between the love of the
Father and the love of the Son.

(76.1)6:4.1 The Eternal
Son motivates the spirit level of cosmic reality; the spiritual power of
the Son is absolute in relation to all universe actualities. He
exercises perfect control over the interassociation of all
undifferentiated spirit energy and over all actualized spirit reality
through his absolute grasp of spirit gravity. All pure unfragmented
spirit and all spiritual beings and values are responsive to the
infinite drawing power of the primal Son of Paradise. And if the eternal
future should witness the appearance of an unlimited universe, the
spirit gravity and the spirit power of the Original Son will be found
wholly adequate for the spiritual control and effective administration
of such a boundless creation.(76.2)6:4.2 The Son is
omnipotent only in the spiritual realm. In the eternal economy of
universe administration, wasteful and needless repetition of function is
never encountered; the Deities are not given to useless duplication of
universe ministry.(76.3)6:4.3 The
omnipresence of the Original Son constitutes the spiritual unity of the
universe of universes. The spiritual cohesion of all creation rests upon
the everywhere active presence of the divine spirit of the Eternal Son.
When we conceive of the Father’s spiritual presence, we find it
difficult to differentiate it in our thinking from the spiritual
presence of the Eternal Son. The spirit of the Father is eternally
resident in the spirit of the Son.(76.4)6:4.4 The Father
must be spiritually omnipresent, but such omnipresence appears to be
inseparable from the everywhere spirit activities of the Eternal Son. We
do, however, believe that in all situations of Father-Son presence of a
dual spiritual nature the spirit of the Son is co-ordinate with the
spirit of the Father.(76.5)6:4.5 In his
contact with personality, the Father acts in the personality circuit. In
his personal and detectable contact with spiritual creation, he appears
in the fragments of the totality of his Deity, and these Father
fragments have a solitary, unique, and exclusive function wherever and
whenever they appear in the universes. In all such situations the spirit
of the Son is co-ordinate with the spiritual function of the fragmented
presence of the Universal Father.(76.6)6:4.6 Spiritually
the Eternal Son is omnipresent. The spirit of the Eternal Son is most
certainly with you and around you, but not within you and a part of you
like the Mystery Monitor. The indwelling Father fragment adjusts the
human mind to progressively divine attitudes, whereupon such an
ascending mind becomes increasingly responsive to the spiritual drawing
power of the all-powerful spirit-gravity circuit of the Second Source
and Center.(76.7)6:4.7 The Original
Son is universally and spiritually self-conscious. In wisdom the Son is
the full equal of the Father. In the realms of knowledge, omniscience,
we cannot distinguish between the First and Second Sources; like the
Father, the Son knows all; he is never surprised by any universe event;
he comprehends the end from the beginning.(77.1)6:4.8 The Father
and the Son really know the number and whereabouts of all the spirits
and spiritualized beings in the universe of universes. Not only does the
Son know all things by virtue of his own omnipresent spirit, but the
Son, equally with the Father and the Conjoint Actor, is fully cognizant
of the vast reflectivity intelligence of the Supreme Being, which
intelligence is at all times aware of all things that transpire on all
the worlds of the seven superuniverses. And there are other ways in
which the Paradise Son is omniscient.(77.2)6:4.9 The Eternal
Son, as a loving, merciful, and ministering spiritual personality, is
wholly and infinitely equal with the Universal Father, while in all
those merciful and affectionate personal contacts with the ascendant
beings of the lower realms the Eternal Son is just as kind and
considerate, just as patient and long-suffering, as are his Paradise
Sons in the local universes who so frequently bestow themselves upon the
evolutionary worlds of time.(77.3)6:4.10 It is
needless further to expatiate on the attributes of the Eternal Son. With
the exceptions noted, it is only necessary to study the spiritual
attributes of God the Father to understand and correctly evaluate the
attributes of God the Son.

(77.4)6:5.1 The Eternal
Son does not personally function in the physical domains, nor does he
function, except through the Conjoint Actor, in the levels of mind
ministry to creature beings. But these qualifications do not in any
manner otherwise limit the Eternal Son in the full and free exercise of
all the divine attributes of spiritual omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence.(77.5)6:5.2 The Eternal
Son does not personally pervade the potentials of spirit inherent in the
infinity of the Deity Absolute, but as these potentials become actual,
they come within the all-powerful grasp of the spirit-gravity circuit of
the Son.(77.6)6:5.3 Personality
is the exclusive gift of the Universal Father. The Eternal Son derives
personality from the Father, but he does not, without the Father, bestow
personality. The Son gives origin to a vast spirit host, but such
derivations are not personalities. When the Son creates personality, he
does so in conjunction with the Father or with the Conjoint Creator, who
may act for the Father in such relationships. The Eternal Son is thus a
cocreator of personalities, but he bestows personality upon no being
and of himself, alone, never creates personal beings. This limitation of
action does not, however, deprive the Son of the ability to create any
or all types of other-than-personal reality.(77.7)6:5.4 The Eternal
Son is limited in transmittal of creator prerogatives. The Father, in
eternalizing the Original Son, bestowed upon him the power and privilege
of subsequently joining with the Father in the divine act of producing
additional Sons possessing creative attributes, and this they have done
and now do. But when these co-ordinate Sons have been produced, the
prerogatives of creatorship are apparently not further transmissible.
The Eternal Son transmits creatorship powers only to the first or direct
personalization. Therefore, when the Father and the Son unite to
personalize a Creator Son, they achieve their purpose; but the Creator
Son thus brought into existence is never able to transmit or delegate
the prerogatives of creatorship to the various orders of Sons which he
may subsequently create, notwithstanding that, in the highest local
universe Sons, there does appear a very limited reflection of the
creative attributes of a Creator Son.(78.1)6:5.5 The Eternal
Son, as an infinite and exclusively personal being, cannot fragmentize
his nature, cannot distribute and bestow individualized portions of his
selfhood upon other entities or persons as do the Universal Father and
the Infinite Spirit. But the Son can and does bestow himself as an
unlimited spirit to bathe all creation and unceasingly draw all spirit
personalities and spiritual realities to himself.(78.2)6:5.6 Ever
remember, the Eternal Son is the personal portrayal of the spirit Father
to all creation. The Son is personal and nothing but personal in the
Deity sense; such a divine and absolute personality cannot be
disintegrated or fragmentized. God the Father and God the Spirit are
truly personal, but they are also everything else in addition to being
such Deity personalities.(78.3)6:5.7 Though the
Eternal Son cannot personally participate in the bestowal of the Thought
Adjusters, he did sit in council with the Universal Father in the
eternal past, approving the plan and pledging endless co-operation, when
the Father, in projecting the bestowal of the Thought Adjusters,
proposed to the Son, “Let us make mortal man in our own image.” And as
the spirit fragment of the Father dwells within you, so does the spirit
presence of the Son envelop you, while these two forever work as one for
your spiritual advancement.

(78.4)6:6.1 The Eternal
Son is spirit and has mind, but not a mind or a spirit which mortal mind
can comprehend. Mortal man perceives mind on the finite, cosmic,
material, and personal levels. Man also observes mind phenomena in
living organisms functioning on the subpersonal (animal) level, but it
is difficult for him to grasp the nature of mind when associated with
supermaterial beings and as a part of exclusive spirit personalities.
Mind must, however, be differently defined when it refers to the spirit
level of existence, and when it is used to denote spirit functions of
intelligence. That kind of mind which is directly allied with spirit is
comparable neither to that mind which co-ordinates spirit and matter nor
to that mind which is allied only with matter.(78.5)6:6.2 Spirit is
ever conscious, minded, and possessed of varied phases of identity.
Without mind in some phase there would be no spiritual consciousness in
the fraternity of spirit beings. The equivalent of mind, the ability to
know and be known, is indigenous to Deity. Deity may be personal,
prepersonal, superpersonal, or impersonal, but Deity is never mindless,
that is, never without the ability at least to communicate with similar
entities, beings, or personalities.(78.6)6:6.3 The mind of
the Eternal Son is like that of the Father but unlike any other mind in
the universe, and with the mind of the Father it is ancestor to the
diverse and far-flung minds of the Conjoint Creator. The mind of the
Father and the Son, that intellect which is ancestral to the absolute
mind of the Third Source and Center, is perhaps best illustrated in the
premind of a Thought Adjuster, for, though these Father fragments are
entirely outside of the mind circuits of the Conjoint Actor, they have
some form of premind; they know as they are known; they enjoy the
equivalent of human thinking.(78.7)6:6.4 The Eternal
Son is wholly spiritual; man is very nearly entirely material; therefore
much pertaining to the spirit personality of the Eternal Son, to his
seven spiritual spheres encircling Paradise and to the nature of the
impersonal creations of the Paradise Son, will have to await your
attainment of spirit status following your completion of the morontia
ascension of the local universe of Nebadon. And then, as you pass
through the superuniverse and on to Havona, many of these
spirit-concealed mysteries will clarify as you begin to be endowed with
the “mind of the spirit” — spiritual insight.

(79.1)6:7.1 The Eternal
Son is that infinite personality from whose unqualified personality
fetters the Universal Father escaped by the technique of trinitization,
and by virtue of which he has ever since continued to bestow himself in
endless profusion upon his ever-expanding universe of Creators and
creatures. The Son is absolute personality; God is father personality —
the source of personality, the bestower of personality, the cause of
personality. Every personal being derives personality from the Universal
Father just as the Original Son eternally derives his personality from
the Paradise Father.(79.2)6:7.2 The
personality of the Paradise Son is absolute and purely spiritual, and
this absolute personality is also the divine and eternal pattern, first,
of the Father’s bestowal of personality upon the Conjoint Actor and,
subsequently, of his bestowal of personality upon the myriads of his
creatures throughout a far-flung universe.(79.3)6:7.3 The Eternal
Son is truly a merciful minister, a divine spirit, a spiritual power,
and a real personality. The Son is the spiritual and personal nature of
God made manifest to the universes — the sum and substance of the First
Source and Center, divested of all that which is nonpersonal,
extradivine, nonspiritual, and pure potential. But it is impossible to
convey to the human mind a word picture of the beauty and grandeur of
the supernal personality of the Eternal Son. Everything that tends to
obscure the Universal Father operates with almost equal influence to
prevent the conceptual recognition of the Eternal Son. You must await
your attainment of Paradise, and then you will understand why I was
unable to portray the character of this absolute personality to the
understanding of the finite mind.

(79.4)6:8.1 Concerning
identity, nature, and other attributes of personality, the Eternal Son
is the full equal, the perfect complement, and the eternal counterpart
of the Universal Father. In the same sense that God is the Universal
Father, the Son is the Universal Mother. And all of us, high and low,
constitute their universal family.(79.5)6:8.2 To appreciate
the character of the Son, you should study the revelation of the divine
character of the Father; they are forever and inseparably one. As
divine personalities they are virtually indistinguishable by the lower
orders of intelligence. They are not so difficult of separate
recognition by those whose origin is in the creative acts of the Deities
themselves. Beings of nativity in the central universe and on Paradise
discern the Father and the Son not only as one personal unity of
universal control but also as two separate personalities functioning in
definite domains of universe administration.(79.6)6:8.3 As persons
you may conceive of the Universal Father and the Eternal Son as separate
individuals, for they indeed are; but in the administration of the
universes they are so intertwined and interrelated that it is not always
possible to distinguish between them. When, in the affairs of the
universes, the Father and the Son are encountered in confusing
interassociations, it is not always profitable to attempt to segregate
their operations; merely recall that God is the initiating thought and
the Son is the expressionful word. In each local universe this
inseparability is personalized in the divinity of the Creator Son, who
stands for both Father and Son to the creatures of ten million inhabited
worlds.(80.1)6:8.4 The Eternal
Son is infinite, but he is approachable through the persons of his
Paradise Sons and through the patient ministry of the Infinite Spirit.
Without the bestowal service of the Paradise Sons and the loving
ministry of the creatures of the Infinite Spirit, beings of material
origin could hardly hope to attain the Eternal Son. And it is equally
true: With the help and guidance of these celestial agencies the
God-conscious mortal will certainly attain Paradise and sometime stand
in the personal presence of this majestic Son of Sons.(80.2)6:8.5 Even though
the Eternal Son is the pattern of mortal personality attainment, you
find it easier to grasp the reality of both the Father and the Spirit
because the Father is the actual bestower of your human personality and
the Infinite Spirit is the absolute source of your mortal mind. But as
you ascend in the Paradise path of spiritual progression, the
personality of the Eternal Son will become increasingly real to you, and
the reality of his infinitely spiritual mind will become more
discernible to your progressively spiritualizing mind.(80.3)6:8.6 Never can the
concept of the Eternal Son shine brightly in your material or
subsequent morontial mind; not until you spiritize and commence your
spirit ascension will the comprehension of the personality of the
Eternal Son begin to equal the vividness of your concept of the
personality of the Creator Son of Paradise origin who, in person and as a
person, onetime incarnated and lived on Urantia as a man among men.(80.4)6:8.7 Throughout
your local universe experience the Creator Son, whose personality is
comprehensible by man, must compensate for your inability to grasp the
full significance of the more exclusively spiritual, but none the less
personal, Eternal Son of Paradise. As you progress through Orvonton and
Havona, as you leave behind you the vivid picture and deep memories of
the Creator Son of your local universe, the passing of this material and
morontia experience will be compensated by ever-enlarging concepts and
intensifying comprehension of the Eternal Son of Paradise, whose reality
and nearness will ever augment as you progress Paradiseward.(80.5)6:8.8 The Eternal
Son is a grand and glorious personality. Although it is beyond the
powers of the mortal and material mind to grasp the actuality of the
personality of such an infinite being, doubt not, he is a person. I know
whereof I speak. Times almost without number I have stood in the divine
presence of this Eternal Son and then journeyed forth in the universe
to execute his gracious bidding.(80.6)6:8.9 [Indited by a Divine Counselor assigned to formulate this statement depicting the Eternal Son of Paradise.]

The Urantia Book

Paper 7

Relation of the Eternal Son to the Universe

(81.1)7:0.1 THE Original
Son is ever concerned with the execution of the spiritual aspects of the
Father’s eternal purpose as it progressively unfolds in the phenomena
of the evolving universes with their manifold groups of living beings.
We do not fully comprehend this eternal plan, but the Paradise Son
undoubtedly does.(81.2)7:0.2 The Son is
like the Father in that he seeks to bestow everything possible of
himself upon his co-ordinate Sons and upon their subordinate Sons. And
the Son shares the Father’s self-distributive nature in the unstinted
bestowal of himself upon the Infinite Spirit, their conjoint executive.(81.3)7:0.3 As the
upholder of spirit realities, the Second Source and Center is the
eternal counterpoise of the Isle of Paradise, which so magnificently
upholds all things material. Thus is the First Source and Center forever
revealed in the material beauty of the exquisite patterns of the
central Isle and in the spiritual values of the supernal personality of
the Eternal Son.(81.4)7:0.4 The Eternal
Son is the actual upholder of the vast creation of spirit realities and
spiritual beings. The spirit world is the habit, the personal conduct,
of the Son, and the impersonal realities of spirit nature are always
responsive to the will and purpose of the perfect personality of the
Absolute Son.(81.5)7:0.5 The Son is
not, however, personally responsible for the conduct of all spirit
personalities. The will of the personal creature is relatively free and
hence determines the actions of such volitional beings. Therefore the
freewill spirit world is not always truly representative of the
character of the Eternal Son, even as nature on Urantia is not truly
revelatory of the perfection and immutability of Paradise and Deity. But
no matter what may characterize the freewill action of man or angel,
the Son’s eternal grasp of the universal gravity control of all spirit
realities continues as absolute.

1. The Spirit-Gravity Circuit

(81.6)7:1.1 Everything
taught concerning the immanence of God, his omnipresence, omnipotence,
and omniscience, is equally true of the Son in the spiritual domains.
The pure and universal spirit gravity of all creation, this exclusively
spiritual circuit, leads directly back to the person of the Second
Source and Center on Paradise. He presides over the control and
operation of that ever-present and unerring spiritual grasp of all true
spirit values. Thus does the Eternal Son exercise absolute spiritual
sovereignty. He literally holds all spirit realities and all
spiritualized values, as it were, in the hollow of his hand. The control
of universal spiritual gravity is universal spiritual sovereignty.(82.1)7:1.2 This gravity
control of spiritual things operates independently of time and space;
therefore is spirit energy undiminished in transmission. Spirit gravity
never suffers time delays, nor does it undergo space diminution. It does
not decrease in accordance with the square of the distance of its
transmission; the circuits of pure spirit power are not retarded by the
mass of the material creation. And this transcendence of time and space
by pure spirit energies is inherent in the absoluteness of the Son; it
is not due to the interposition of the antigravity forces of the Third
Source and Center.(82.2)7:1.3 Spirit
realities respond to the drawing power of the center of spiritual
gravity in accordance with their qualitative value, their actual degree
of spirit nature. Spirit substance (quality) is just as responsive to
spirit gravity as the organized energy of physical matter (quantity) is
responsive to physical gravity. Spiritual values and spirit forces are real. From the viewpoint of personality, spirit is the soul of creation; matter is the shadowy physical body.(82.3)7:1.4 The reactions
and fluctuations of spirit gravity are ever true to the content of
spiritual values, the qualitative spiritual status of an individual or a
world. This drawing power is instantly responsive to the inter- and
intraspirit values of any universe situation or planetary condition.
Every time a spiritual reality actualizes in the universes, this change
necessitates the immediate and instantaneous readjustment of spirit
gravity. Such a new spirit is actually a part of the Second Source and
Center; and just as certainly as mortal man becomes a spiritized being,
he will attain the spiritual Son, the center and source of spirit
gravity.(82.4)7:1.5 The Son’s
spiritual drawing power is inherent to a lesser degree in many Paradise
orders of sonship. For there do exist within the absolute spirit-gravity
circuit those local systems of spiritual attraction that function in
the lesser units of creation. Such subabsolute focalizations of spirit
gravity are a part of the divinity of the Creator personalities of time
and space and are correlated with the emerging experiential overcontrol
of the Supreme Being.(82.5)7:1.6 Spirit-gravity
pull and response thereto operate not only on the universe as a whole
but also even between individuals and groups of individuals. There is a
spiritual cohesiveness among the spiritual and spiritized personalities
of any world, race, nation, or believing group of individuals. There is a
direct attractiveness of a spirit nature between spiritually minded
persons of like tastes and longings. The term kindred spirits is not wholly a figure of speech.(82.6)7:1.7 Like the
material gravity of Paradise, the spiritual gravity of the Eternal Son
is absolute. Sin and rebellion may interfere with the operation of local
universe circuits, but nothing can suspend the spirit gravity of the
Eternal Son. The Lucifer rebellion produced many changes in your system
of inhabited worlds and on Urantia, but we do not observe that the
resultant spiritual quarantine of your planet in the least affected the
presence and function of either the omnipresent spirit of the Eternal
Son or the associated spirit-gravity circuit.(82.7)7:1.8 All reactions
of the spirit-gravity circuit of the grand universe are predictable. We
recognize all actions and reactions of the omnipresent spirit of the
Eternal Son and find them to be dependable. In accordance with
well-known laws, we can and do measure spiritual gravity just as man
attempts to compute the workings of finite physical gravity. There is an
unvarying response of the Son’s spirit to all spirit things, beings,
and persons, and this response is always in accordance with the degree
of actuality (the qualitative degree of reality) of all such spiritual
values.(83.1)7:1.9 But alongside
this very dependable and predictable function of the spiritual presence
of the Eternal Son, there are encountered phenomena which are not so
predictable in their reactions. Such phenomena probably indicate the
co-ordinate action of the Deity Absolute in the realms of emerging
spiritual potentials. We know that the spirit presence of the Eternal
Son is the influence of a majestic and infinite personality, but we
hardly regard the reactions associated with the conjectured performances
of the Deity Absolute as personal.(83.2)7:1.10 Viewed from
the personality standpoint and by persons, the Eternal Son and the Deity
Absolute appear to be related in the following way: The Eternal Son
dominates the realm of actual spiritual values, whereas the Deity
Absolute seems to pervade the vast domain of potential spirit values.
All actual value of spirit nature finds lodgment in the gravity grasp of
the Eternal Son but, if potential, then apparently in the presence of
the Deity Absolute.(83.3)7:1.11 Spirit seems
to emerge from the potentials of the Deity Absolute; evolving spirit
finds correlation in the experiential and incomplete grasps of the
Supreme and the Ultimate; spirit eventually finds final destiny in the
absolute grasp of the spiritual gravity of the Eternal Son. This appears
to be the cycle of experiential spirit, but existential spirit is
inherent in the infinity of the Second Source and Center.

2. The Administration of the Eternal Son

(83.4)7:2.1 On Paradise
the presence and personal activity of the Original Son is profound,
absolute in the spiritual sense. As we pass outward from Paradise
through Havona and into the realms of the seven superuniverses, we
detect less and less of the personal activity of the Eternal Son. In the
post-Havona universes the presence of the Eternal Son is personalized
in the Paradise Sons, conditioned by the experiential realities of the
Supreme and the Ultimate, and co-ordinated with the unlimited spirit
potential of the Deity Absolute.(83.5)7:2.2 In the central
universe the personal activity of the Original Son is discernible in
the exquisite spiritual harmony of the eternal creation. Havona is so
marvelously perfect that the spiritual status and the energy states of
this pattern universe are in perfect and perpetual balance.(83.6)7:2.3 In the
superuniverses the Son is not personally present or resident; in these
creations he maintains only a superpersonal representation. These spirit
manifestations of the Son are not personal; they are not in the
personality circuit of the Universal Father. We know of no better term
to use than to designate them superpersonalities; and they are finite beings; they are neither absonite nor absolute.(83.7)7:2.4 The
administration of the Eternal Son in the superuniverses, being
exclusively spiritual and superpersonal, is not discernible by creature
personalities. Nonetheless, the all-pervading spiritual urge of the
Son’s personal influence is encountered in every phase of the activities
of all sectors of the domains of the Ancients of Days. In the local
universes, however, we observe the Eternal Son personally present in the
persons of the Paradise Sons. Here the infinite Son spiritually and
creatively functions in the persons of the majestic corps of the
co-ordinate Creator Sons.

3. Relation of the Eternal Son to the Individual

(84.1)7:3.1 In the local
universe ascent the mortals of time look to the Creator Son as the
personal representative of the Eternal Son. But when they begin the
ascent of the superuniverse training regime, the pilgrims of time
increasingly detect the supernal presence of the inspiring spirit of the
Eternal Son, and they are able to profit by the intake of this ministry
of spiritual energization. In Havona the ascenders become still more
conscious of the loving embrace of the all-pervading spirit of the
Original Son. At no stage of the entire mortal ascension does the spirit
of the Eternal Son indwell the mind or soul of the pilgrim of time, but
his beneficence is ever near and always concerned with the welfare and
spiritual security of the advancing children of time.(84.2)7:3.2 The
spiritual-gravity pull of the Eternal Son constitutes the inherent
secret of the Paradise ascension of surviving human souls. All genuine
spirit values and all bona fide spiritualized individuals are held
within the unfailing grasp of the spiritual gravity of the Eternal Son.
The mortal mind, for example, initiates its career as a material
mechanism and is eventually mustered into the Corps of the Finality as a
well-nigh perfected spirit existence, becoming progressively less
subject to material gravity and correspondingly more responsive to the
inward pulling urge of spirit gravity during this entire experience. The
spirit-gravity circuit literally pulls the soul of man Paradiseward.(84.3)7:3.3 The
spirit-gravity circuit is the basic channel for transmitting the genuine
prayers of the believing human heart from the level of human
consciousness to the actual consciousness of Deity. That which
represents true spiritual value in your petitions will be seized by the
universal circuit of spirit gravity and will pass immediately and
simultaneously to all divine personalities concerned. Each will occupy
himself with that which belongs to his personal province. Therefore, in
your practical religious experience, it is immaterial whether, in
addressing your supplications, you visualize the Creator Son of your
local universe or the Eternal Son at the center of all things.(84.4)7:3.4 The
discriminative operation of the spirit-gravity circuit might possibly be
compared to the functions of the neural circuits in the material human
body: Sensations travel inward over the neural paths; some are detained
and responded to by the lower automatic spinal centers; others pass on
to the less automatic but habit-trained centers of the lower brain,
while the most important and vital incoming messages flash by these
subordinate centers and are immediately registered in the highest levels
of human consciousness.(84.5)7:3.5 But how much
more perfect is the superb technique of the spiritual world! If anything
originates in your consciousness that is fraught with supreme spiritual
value, when once you give it expression, no power in the universe can
prevent its flashing directly to the Absolute Spirit Personality of all
creation.(84.6)7:3.6 Conversely, if
your supplications are purely material and wholly self-centered, there
exists no plan whereby such unworthy prayers can find lodgment in the
spirit circuit of the Eternal Son. The content of any petition which is
not “spirit indited” can find no place in the universal spiritual
circuit; such purely selfish and material requests fall dead; they do
not ascend in the circuits of true spirit values. Such words are as
“sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.”(85.1)7:3.7 It is the motivating thought, the spiritual content, that validates the mortal supplication. Words are valueless.

4. The Divine Perfection Plans

(85.2)7:4.1 The Eternal Son is in everlasting liaison with the Father in the successful prosecution of the divine plan of progress:
the universal plan for the creation, evolution, ascension, and
perfection of will creatures. And, in divine faithfulness, the Son is
the eternal equal of the Father.(85.3)7:4.2 The Father and
his Son are as one in the formulation and prosecution of this gigantic
attainment plan for advancing the material beings of time to the
perfection of eternity. This project for the spiritual elevation of the
ascendant souls of space is a joint creation of the Father and the Son,
and they are, with the co-operation of the Infinite Spirit, engaged in
associative execution of their divine purpose.(85.4)7:4.3 This divine
plan of perfection attainment embraces three unique, though marvelously
correlated, enterprises of universal adventure:(85.5)7:4.4 1. The Plan of Progressive Attainment.
This is the Universal Father’s plan of evolutionary ascension, a
program unreservedly accepted by the Eternal Son when he concurred in
the Father’s proposal, “Let us make mortal creatures in our own image.”
This provision for upstepping the creatures of time involves the
Father’s bestowal of the Thought Adjusters and the endowing of material
creatures with the prerogatives of personality.(85.6)7:4.5 2. The Bestowal Plan.
The next universal plan is the great Father-revelation enterprise of
the Eternal Son and his co-ordinate Sons. This is the proposal of the
Eternal Son and consists of his bestowal of the Sons of God upon the
evolutionary creations, there to personalize and factualize, to
incarnate and make real, the love of the Father and the mercy of the Son
to the creatures of all universes. Inherent in the bestowal plan, and
as a provisional feature of this ministration of love, the Paradise Sons
act as rehabilitators of that which misguided creature will has placed
in spiritual jeopardy. Whenever and wherever there occurs a delay in the
functioning of the attainment plan, if rebellion, perchance, should mar
or complicate this enterprise, then do the emergency provisions of the
bestowal plan become active forthwith. The Paradise Sons stand pledged
and ready to function as retrievers, to go into the very realms of
rebellion and there restore the spiritual status of the spheres. And
such a heroic service a co-ordinate Creator Son did perform on Urantia
in connection with his experiential bestowal career of sovereignty
acquirement.(85.7)7:4.6 3. The Plan of Mercy Ministry.
When the attainment plan and the bestowal plan had been formulated and
proclaimed, alone and of himself, the Infinite Spirit projected and put
in operation the tremendous and universal enterprise of mercy ministry.
This is the service so essential to the practical and effective
operation of both the attainment and the bestowal undertakings, and the
spiritual personalities of the Third Source and Center all partake of
the spirit of mercy ministry which is so much a part of the nature of
the Third Person of Deity. Not only in creation but also in
administration, the Infinite Spirit functions truly and literally as the
conjoint executive of the Father and the Son.(86.1)7:4.7 The Eternal
Son is the personal trustee, the divine custodian, of the Father’s
universal plan of creature ascension. Having promulgated the universal
mandate, “Be you perfect, even as I am perfect,” the Father intrusted
the execution of this tremendous undertaking to the Eternal Son; and the
Eternal Son shares the fostering of this supernal enterprise with his
divine co-ordinate, the Infinite Spirit. Thus do the Deities effectively
co-operate in the work of creation, control, evolution, revelation, and
ministration — and if required, in restoration and rehabilitation.

5. The Spirit of Bestowal

(86.2)7:5.1 The Eternal
Son without reservation joined with the Universal Father in broadcasting
that tremendous injunction to all creation: “Be you perfect, even as
your Father in Havona is perfect.” And ever since, that
invitation-command has motivated all the survival plans and the bestowal
projects of the Eternal Son and his vast family of co-ordinate and
associated Sons. And in these very bestowals the Sons of God have become
to all evolutionary creatures “the way, the truth, and the life.”(86.3)7:5.2 The Eternal
Son cannot contact directly with human beings as does the Father through
the gift of the prepersonal Thought Adjusters, but the Eternal Son does
draw near to created personalities by a series of downstepping
gradations of divine sonship until he is enabled to stand in man’s
presence and, at times, as man himself.(86.4)7:5.3 The purely
personal nature of the Eternal Son is incapable of fragmentation. The
Eternal Son ministers as a spiritual influence or as a person, never
otherwise. The Son finds it impossible to become a part of creature
experience in the sense that the Father-Adjuster participates therein,
but the Eternal Son compensates this limitation by the technique of
bestowal. What the experience of fragmented entities means to the
Universal Father, the incarnation experiences of the Paradise Sons mean
to the Eternal Son.(86.5)7:5.4 The Eternal
Son comes not to mortal man as the divine will, the Thought Adjuster
indwelling the human mind, but the Eternal Son did come to mortal man on
Urantia when the divine personality of his Son, Michael of
Nebadon, incarnated in the human nature of Jesus of Nazareth. To share
the experience of created personalities, the Paradise Sons of God must
assume the very natures of such creatures and incarnate their divine
personalities as the actual creatures themselves. Incarnation, the
secret of Sonarington, is the technique of the Son’s escape from the
otherwise all-encompassing fetters of personality absolutism.(86.6)7:5.5 Long, long ago
the Eternal Son bestowed himself upon each of the circuits of the
central creation for the enlightenment and advancement of all the
inhabitants and pilgrims of Havona, including the ascending pilgrims of
time. On none of these seven bestowals did he function as either an
ascender or a Havoner. He existed as himself. His experience was unique;
it was not with or as a human or other pilgrim but in some way associative in the superpersonal sense.(86.7)7:5.6 Neither did he
pass through the rest that intervenes between the inner Havona circuit
and the shores of Paradise. It is not possible for him, an absolute
being, to suspend consciousness of personality, for in him center all
lines of spiritual gravity. And during the times of these bestowals the
central Paradise lodgment of spiritual luminosity was undimmed, and the
Son’s grasp of universal spirit gravity was undiminished.(87.1)7:5.7 The bestowals
of the Eternal Son in Havona are not within the scope of human
imagination; they were transcendental. He added to the experience of all
Havona then and subsequently, but we do not know whether he added to
the supposed experiential capacity of his existential nature. That would
fall within the bestowal mystery of the Paradise Sons. We do, however,
believe that whatever the Eternal Son acquired on these bestowal
missions, he has ever since retained; but we do not know what it is.(87.2)7:5.8 Whatever our
difficulty in comprehending the bestowals of the Second Person of Deity,
we do comprehend the Havona bestowal of a Son of the Eternal Son, who
literally passed through the circuits of the central universe and
actually shared those experiences which constitute an ascender’s
preparation for Deity attainment. This was the original Michael, the
first-born Creator Son, and he passed through the life experiences of
the ascending pilgrims from circuit to circuit, personally journeying a
stage of each circle with them in the days of Grandfanda, the first of
all mortals to attain Havona.(87.3)7:5.9 Whatever else
this original Michael revealed, he made the transcendent bestowal of the
Original Mother Son real to the creatures of Havona. So real, that
forevermore each pilgrim of time who labors in the adventure of making
the Havona circuits is cheered and strengthened by the certain knowledge
that the Eternal Son of God seven times abdicated the power and glory
of Paradise to participate in the experiences of the time-space pilgrims
on the seven circuits of progressive Havona attainment.(87.4)7:5.10 The Eternal
Son is the exemplary inspiration for all the Sons of God in their
ministrations of bestowal throughout the universes of time and space.
The co-ordinate Creator Sons and the associate Magisterial Sons,
together with other unrevealed orders of sonship, all partake of this
wonderful willingness to bestow themselves upon the varied orders of
creature life and as the creatures themselves. Therefore, in spirit and
because of kinship of nature as well as fact of origin, it becomes true
that in the bestowal of each Son of God upon the worlds of space, in and
through and by these bestowals, the Eternal Son has bestowed himself
upon the intelligent will creatures of the universes.(87.5)7:5.11 In spirit
and nature, if not in all attributes, each Paradise Son is a divinely
perfect portraiture of the Original Son. It is literally true, whosoever
has seen a Paradise Son has seen the Eternal Son of God.

6. The Paradise Sons of God

(87.6)7:6.1 The lack of a
knowledge of the multiple Sons of God is a source of great confusion on
Urantia. And this ignorance persists in the face of such statements as
the record of a conclave of these divine personalities: “When the Sons
of God proclaimed joy, and all of the Morning Stars sang together.”
Every millennium of sector standard time the various orders of the
divine Sons forgather for their periodic conclaves.(87.7)7:6.2 The Eternal
Son is the personal source of the adorable attributes of mercy and
service which so abundantly characterize all orders of the descending
Sons of God as they function throughout creation. All the divine nature,
if not all the infinity of attributes, the Eternal Son unfailingly
transmits to the Paradise Sons who go out from the eternal Isle to
reveal his divine character to the universe of universes.(88.1)7:6.3 The Original
and Eternal Son is the offspring-person of the “first” completed and
infinite thought of the Universal Father. Every time the Universal
Father and the Eternal Son jointly project a new, original, identical,
unique, and absolute personal thought, that very instant this creative
idea is perfectly and finally personalized in the being and personality
of a new and original Creator Son. In spirit nature, divine
wisdom, and co-ordinate creative power, these Creator Sons are
potentially equal with God the Father and God the Son.(88.2)7:6.4 The Creator
Sons go out from Paradise into the universes of time and, with the
co-operation of the controlling and creative agencies of the Third
Source and Center, complete the organization of the local universes of
progressive evolution. These Sons are not attached to, nor are they
concerned with, the central and universal controls of matter, mind, and
spirit. Hence are they limited in their creative acts by the
pre-existence, priority, and primacy of the First Source and Center and
his co-ordinate Absolutes. These Sons are able to administer only that
which they bring into existence. Absolute administration is inherent in
priority of existence and is inseparable from eternity of presence. The
Father remains primal in the universes.(88.3)7:6.5 Much as the Creator Sons are personalized by the Father and the Son, so are the Magisterial Sons
personalized by the Son and the Spirit. These are the Sons who, in the
experiences of creature incarnation, earn the right to serve as the
judges of survival in the creations of time and space.(88.4)7:6.6 The Father, Son, and Spirit also unite to personalize the versatile Trinity Teacher Sons,
who range the grand universe as the supernal teachers of all
personalities, human and divine. And there are numerous other orders of
Paradise sonship that have not been brought to the attention of Urantia
mortals.(88.5)7:6.7 Between the
Original Mother Son and these hosts of Paradise Sons scattered
throughout all creation, there is a direct and exclusive channel of
communication, a channel whose function is inherent in the quality of
spiritual kinship which unites them in bonds of near-absolute spiritual
association. This intersonship circuit is entirely different from the
universal circuit of spirit gravity, which also centers in the person of
the Second Source and Center. All Sons of God who take origin in the
persons of the Paradise Deities are in direct and constant communication
with the Eternal Mother Son. And such communication is instantaneous;
it is independent of time though sometimes conditioned by space.(88.6)7:6.8 The Eternal
Son not only has at all times perfect knowledge concerning the status,
thoughts, and manifold activities of all orders of Paradise sonship, but
he also has perfection of knowledge at all times regarding everything
of spiritual value which exists in the hearts of all creatures in the
primary central creation of eternity and in the secondary time creations
of the co-ordinate Creator Sons.

7. The Supreme Revelation of the Father

(88.7)7:7.1 The Eternal
Son is a complete, exclusive, universal, and final revelation of the
spirit and the personality of the Universal Father. All knowledge of,
and information concerning, the Father must come from the Eternal Son
and his Paradise Sons. The Eternal Son is from eternity and is wholly
and without spiritual qualification one with the Father. In divine
personality they are co-ordinate; in spiritual nature they are equal; in
divinity they are identical.(89.1)7:7.2 The character
of God could not possibly be intrinsically improved upon in the person
of the Son, for the divine Father is infinitely perfect, but that
character and personality are amplified, by divestment of the
nonpersonal and nonspiritual, for revelation to creature beings. The
First Source and Center is much more than a personality, but all of the
spirit qualities of the father personality of the First Source and
Center are spiritually present in the absolute personality of the
Eternal Son.(89.2)7:7.3 The primal Son
and his Sons are engaged in making a universal revelation of the
spiritual and personal nature of the Father to all creation. In the
central universe, the superuniverses, the local universes, or on the
inhabited planets, it is a Paradise Son who reveals the Universal Father
to men and angels. The Eternal Son and his Sons reveal the avenue of
creature approach to the Universal Father. And even we of high origin
understand the Father much more fully as we study the revelation of his
character and personality in the Eternal Son and in the Sons of the
Eternal Son.(89.3)7:7.4 The Father
comes down to you as a personality only through the divine Sons of the
Eternal Son. And you attain the Father by this same living way; you
ascend to the Father by the guidance of this group of divine Sons. And
this remains true notwithstanding that your very personality is a direct
bestowal of the Universal Father.(89.4)7:7.5 In all these
widespread activities of the far-flung spiritual administration of the
Eternal Son, do not forget that the Son is a person just as truly and
actually as the Father is a person. Indeed, to beings of the onetime
human order the Eternal Son will be more easy to approach than the
Universal Father. In the progress of the pilgrims of time through the
circuits of Havona, you will be competent to attain the Son long before
you are prepared to discern the Father.(89.5)7:7.6 More of the
character and merciful nature of the Eternal Son of mercy you should
comprehend as you meditate on the revelation of these divine attributes
which was made in loving service by your own Creator Son, onetime Son of
Man on earth, now the exalted sovereign of your local universe — the
Son of Man and the Son of God.(89.6)7:7.7 [Indited by a Divine Counselor assigned to formulate this statement depicting the Eternal Son of Paradise.]

The Urantia Book

Paper 8

The Infinite Spirit

(90.1)8:0.1 BACK in
eternity, when the Universal Father’s “first” infinite and absolute
thought finds in the Eternal Son such a perfect and adequate word for
its divine expression, there ensues the supreme desire of both the
Thought-God and the Word-God for a universal and infinite agent of
mutual expression and combined action.(90.2)8:0.2 In the dawn of
eternity both the Father and the Son become infinitely cognizant of
their mutual interdependence, their eternal and absolute oneness; and
therefore do they enter into an infinite and everlasting covenant of
divine partnership. This never-ending compact is made for the execution
of their united concepts throughout all of the circle of eternity; and
ever since this eternity event the Father and the Son continue in this
divine union.(90.3)8:0.3 We are now
face to face with the eternity origin of the Infinite Spirit, the Third
Person of Deity. The very instant that God the Father and God the Son
conjointly conceive an identical and infinite action — the execution of
an absolute thought-plan — that very moment, the Infinite Spirit springs
full-fledgedly into existence.(90.4)8:0.4 In thus
reciting the order of the origin of the Deities, I do so merely to
enable you to think of their relationship. In reality they are all three
existent from eternity; they are existential. They are without
beginning or ending of days; they are co-ordinate, supreme, ultimate,
absolute, and infinite. They are and always have been and ever shall be.
And they are three distinctly individualized but eternally associated
persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit.

1. The God of Action

(90.5)8:1.1 In the
eternity of the past, upon the personalization of the Infinite Spirit
the divine personality cycle becomes perfect and complete. The God of
Action is existent, and the vast stage of space is set for the
stupendous drama of creation — the universal adventure — the divine
panorama of the eternal ages.(90.6)8:1.2 The first act
of the Infinite Spirit is the inspection and recognition of his divine
parents, the Father-Father and the Mother-Son. He, the Spirit,
unqualifiedly identifies both of them. He is fully cognizant of their
separate personalities and infinite attributes as well as of their
combined nature and united function. Next, voluntarily, with
transcendent willingness and inspiring spontaneity, the Third Person of
Deity, notwithstanding his equality with the First and Second Persons,
pledges eternal loyalty to God the Father and acknowledges everlasting
dependence upon God the Son.(90.7)8:1.3 Inherent in
the nature of this transaction and in mutual recognition of the
personality independence of each and the executive union of all three,
the cycle of eternity is established. The Paradise Trinity is existent.
The stage of universal space is set for the manifold and never-ending
panorama of the creative unfolding of the purpose of the Universal
Father through the personality of the Eternal Son and by the execution
of the God of Action, the executive agency for the reality performances
of the Father-Son creator partnership.(91.1)8:1.4 The God of
Action functions and the dead vaults of space are astir. One billion
perfect spheres flash into existence. Prior to this hypothetical
eternity moment the space-energies inherent in Paradise are existent and
potentially operative, but they have no actuality of being; neither can
physical gravity be measured except by the reaction of material
realities to its incessant pull. There is no material universe at this
(assumed) eternally distant moment, but the very instant that one
billion worlds materialize, there is in evidence gravity sufficient and
adequate to hold them in the everlasting grasp of Paradise.(91.2)8:1.5 There now
flashes through the creation of the Gods the second form of energy, and
this outflowing spirit is instantly grasped by the spiritual gravity of
the Eternal Son. Thus the twofold gravity-embraced universe is touched
with the energy of infinity and immersed in the spirit of divinity. In
this way is the soil of life prepared for the consciousness of mind made
manifest in the associated intelligence circuits of the Infinite
Spirit.(91.3)8:1.6 Upon these
seeds of potential existence, diffused throughout the central creation
of the Gods, the Father acts, and creature personality appears. Then
does the presence of the Paradise Deities fill all organized space and
begin effectively to draw all things and beings Paradiseward.(91.4)8:1.7 The Infinite
Spirit eternalizes concurrently with the birth of the Havona worlds,
this central universe being created by him and with him and in him in
obedience to the combined concepts and united wills of the Father and
the Son. The Third Person deitizes by this very act of conjoint
creation, and he thus forever becomes the Conjoint Creator.(91.5)8:1.8 These are the
grand and awful times of the creative expansion of the Father and the
Son by, and in, the action of their conjoint associate and exclusive
executive, the Third Source and Center. There exists no record of these
stirring times. We have only the meager disclosures of the Infinite
Spirit to substantiate these mighty transactions, and he merely verifies
the fact that the central universe and all that pertains thereto
eternalized simultaneously with his attainment of personality and
conscious existence.(91.6)8:1.9 In brief, the
Infinite Spirit testifies that, since he is eternal, so also is the
central universe eternal. And this is the traditional starting point of
the history of the universe of universes. Absolutely nothing is known,
and no records are in existence, regarding any event or transaction
prior to this stupendous eruption of creative energy and administrative
wisdom that crystallized the vast universe which exists, and so
exquisitely functions, at the center of all things. Beyond this event
lie the unsearchable transactions of eternity and the depths of infinity
— absolute mystery.(91.7)8:1.10 And we thus
portray the sequential origin of the Third Source and Center as an
interpretative condescension to the time-bound and space-conditioned
mind of mortal creatures. The mind of man must have a starting point for
the visualization of universe history, and I have been directed to
provide this technique of approach to the historic concept of eternity.
In the material mind, consistency demands a First Cause; therefore do we
postulate the Universal Father as the First Source and the Absolute
Center of all creation, at the same time instructing all creature minds
that the Son and the Spirit are coeternal with the Father in all phases
of universe history and in all realms of creative activity. And we do
this without in any sense being disregardful of the reality and eternity
of the Isle of Paradise and of the Unqualified, Universal, and Deity
Absolutes.(92.1)8:1.11 It is enough
of a reach of the material mind of the children of time to conceive of
the Father in eternity. We know that any child can best relate himself
to reality by first mastering the relationships of the child-parent
situation and then by enlarging this concept to embrace the family as a
whole. Subsequently the growing mind of the child will be able to adjust
to the concept of family relations, to relationships of the community,
the race, and the world, and then to those of the universe, the
superuniverse, even the universe of universes.

2. Nature of the Infinite Spirit

(92.2)8:2.1 The Conjoint
Creator is from eternity and is wholly and without qualification one
with the Universal Father and the Eternal Son. The Infinite Spirit
reflects in perfection not only the nature of the Paradise Father but
also the nature of the Original Son.(92.3)8:2.2 The Third
Source and Center is known by numerous titles: the Universal Spirit, the
Supreme Guide, the Conjoint Creator, the Divine Executive, the Infinite
Mind, the Spirit of Spirits, the Paradise Mother Spirit, the Conjoint
Actor, the Final Co-ordinator, the Omnipresent Spirit, the Absolute
Intelligence, the Divine Action; and on Urantia he is sometimes confused
with the cosmic mind.(92.4)8:2.3 It is
altogether proper to denominate the Third Person of Deity the Infinite
Spirit, for God is spirit. But material creatures who tend towards the
error of viewing matter as basic reality and mind, together with spirit,
as postulates rooted in matter, would better comprehend the Third
Source and Center if he were called the Infinite Reality, the Universal
Organizer, or the Personality Co-ordinator.(92.5)8:2.4 The Infinite
Spirit, as a universe revelation of divinity, is unsearchable and
utterly beyond human comprehension. To sense the absoluteness of the
Spirit, you need only contemplate the infinity of the Universal Father
and stand in awe of the eternity of the Original Son.(92.6)8:2.5 There is
mystery indeed in the person of the Infinite Spirit but not so much as
in the Father and the Son. Of all aspects of the Father’s nature, the
Conjoint Creator most strikingly discloses his infinity. Even if the
master universe eventually expands to infinity, the spirit presence,
energy control, and mind potential of the Conjoint Actor will be found
adequate to meet the demands of such a limitless creation.(92.7)8:2.6 Though in
every way sharing the perfection, the righteousness, and the love of the
Universal Father, the Infinite Spirit inclines towards the mercy
attributes of the Eternal Son, thus becoming the mercy minister of the
Paradise Deities to the grand universe. Ever and always — universally
and eternally — the Spirit is a mercy minister, for, as the divine Sons
reveal the love of God, so the divine Spirit depicts the mercy of God.(93.1)8:2.7 It is not
possible that the Spirit could have more of goodness than the Father
since all goodness takes origin in the Father, but in the acts of the
Spirit we can the better comprehend such goodness. The Father’s
faithfulness and the Son’s constancy are made very real to the spirit
beings and the material creatures of the spheres by the loving ministry
and ceaseless service of the personalities of the Infinite Spirit.(93.2)8:2.8 The Conjoint
Creator inherits all the Father’s beauty of thought and character of
truth. And these sublime traits of divinity are co-ordinated in the
near-supreme levels of the cosmic mind in subordination to the infinite
and eternal wisdom of the unconditioned and limitless mind of the Third
Source and Center.

3. Relation of the Spirit to the Father and the Son

(93.3)8:3.1 As the Eternal
Son is the word expression of the “first” absolute and infinite thought
of the Universal Father, so the Conjoint Actor is the perfect execution
of the “first” completed creative concept or plan for combined action
by the Father-Son personality partnership of absolute thought-word
union. The Third Source and Center eternalizes concurrently with the
central or fiat creation, and only this central creation is eternal in
existence among universes.(93.4)8:3.2 Since the
personalization of the Third Source, the First Source no more personally
participates in universe creation. The Universal Father delegates
everything possible to his Eternal Son; likewise does the Eternal Son
bestow all possible authority and power upon the Conjoint Creator.(93.5)8:3.3 The Eternal
Son and the Conjoint Creator have, as partners and through their
co-ordinate personalities, planned and fashioned every post-Havona
universe which has been brought into existence. The Spirit sustains the
same personal relation to the Son in all subsequent creation that the
Son sustains to the Father in the first and central creation.(93.6)8:3.4 A Creator Son
of the Eternal Son and a Creative Spirit of the Infinite Spirit created
you and your universe; and while the Father in faithfulness upholds that
which they have organized, it devolves upon this Universe Son and this
Universe Spirit to foster and sustain their work as well as to minister
to the creatures of their own making.(93.7)8:3.5 The Infinite
Spirit is the effective agent of the all-loving Father and the
all-merciful Son for the execution of their conjoint project of drawing
to themselves all truth-loving souls on all the worlds of time and
space. The very instant the Eternal Son accepted his Father’s plan of
perfection attainment for the creatures of the universes, the moment the
ascension project became a Father-Son plan, that instant the Infinite
Spirit became the conjoint administrator of the Father and the Son for
the execution of their united and eternal purpose. And in so doing the
Infinite Spirit pledged all his resources of divine presence and of
spirit personalities to the Father and the Son; he has dedicated all to the stupendous plan of exalting surviving will creatures to the divine heights of Paradise perfection.(93.8)8:3.6 The Infinite
Spirit is a complete, exclusive, and universal revelation of the
Universal Father and his Eternal Son. All knowledge of the Father-Son
partnership must be had through the Infinite Spirit, the conjoint
representative of the divine thought-word union.(93.9)8:3.7 The Eternal
Son is the only avenue of approach to the Universal Father, and the
Infinite Spirit is the only means of attaining the Eternal Son. Only by
the patient ministry of the Spirit are the ascendant beings of time able
to discover the Son.(94.1)8:3.8 At the center
of all things the Infinite Spirit is the first of the Paradise Deities
to be attained by the ascending pilgrims. The Third Person enshrouds the
Second and the First Persons and therefore must always be first
recognized by all who are candidates for presentation to the Son and his
Father.(94.2)8:3.9 And in many other ways does the Spirit equally represent and similarly serve the Father and the Son.

4. The Spirit of Divine Ministry

(94.3)8:4.1 Paralleling
the physical universe wherein Paradise gravity holds all things together
is the spiritual universe wherein the word of the Son interprets the
thought of God and, when “made flesh,” demonstrates the loving mercy of
the combined nature of the associated Creators. But in and through all
this material and spiritual creation there is a vast stage whereon the
Infinite Spirit and his spirit offspring show forth the combined mercy,
patience, and everlasting affection of the divine parents towards the
intelligent children of their co-operative devising and making.
Everlasting ministry to mind is the essence of the Spirit’s divine
character. And all the spirit offspring of the Conjoint Actor partake of
this desire to minister, this divine urge to service.(94.4)8:4.2 God is love,
the Son is mercy, the Spirit is ministry — the ministry of divine love
and endless mercy to all intelligent creation. The Spirit is the
personification of the Father’s love and the Son’s mercy; in him are
they eternally united for universal service. The Spirit is love applied to the creature creation, the combined love of the Father and the Son.(94.5)8:4.3 On Urantia the
Infinite Spirit is known as an omnipresent influence, a universal
presence, but in Havona you shall know him as a personal presence of
actual ministry. Here the ministry of the Paradise Spirit is the
exemplary and inspiring pattern for each of his co-ordinate Spirits and
subordinate personalities ministering to the created beings on the
worlds of time and space. In this divine universe the Infinite Spirit
fully participated in the seven transcendental appearances of the
Eternal Son; likewise did he participate with the original Michael Son
in the seven bestowals upon the circuits of Havona, thereby becoming the
sympathetic and understanding spirit minister to every pilgrim of time
traversing these perfect circles on high.(94.6)8:4.4 When a Creator
Son of God accepts the creatorship charge of responsibility for a
projected local universe, the personalities of the Infinite Spirit
pledge themselves as the tireless ministers of this Michael Son when he
goes forth on his mission of creative adventure. Especially in the
persons of the Creative Daughters, the local universe Mother Spirits, do
we find the Infinite Spirit devoted to the task of fostering the
ascension of the material creatures to higher and higher levels of
spiritual attainment. And all this work of creature ministry is done in
perfect harmony with the purposes, and in close association with the
personalities, of the Creator Sons of these local universes.(94.7)8:4.5 As the Sons of
God are engaged in the gigantic task of revealing the Father’s
personality of love to a universe, so is the Infinite Spirit dedicated
to the unending ministry of revealing the combined love of the Father
and the Son to the individual minds of all the children of each
universe. In these local creations the Spirit does not come down to the
material races in the likeness of mortal flesh as do certain of the Sons
of God, but the Infinite Spirit and his co-ordinate Spirits do downstep
themselves, do joyfully undergo an amazing series of divinity
attenuations, until they appear as angels to stand by your side and
guide you through the lowly paths of earthly existence.(95.1)8:4.6 By this very
diminishing series the Infinite Spirit does actually, and as a person,
draw very near to every being of the animal-origin spheres. And all this
the Spirit does without in the least invalidating his existence as the
Third Person of Deity at the center of all things.(95.2)8:4.7 The Conjoint
Creator is truly and forever the great ministering personality, the
universal mercy minister. To comprehend the ministry of the Spirit,
ponder the truth that he is the combined portrayal of the Father’s
unending love and of the Son’s eternal mercy. The Spirit’s ministry is
not, however, restricted solely to the representation of the Eternal Son
and the Universal Father. The Infinite Spirit also possesses the power
to minister to the creatures of the realm in his own name and right; the
Third Person is of divine dignity and also bestows the universal
ministry of mercy in his own behalf.(95.3)8:4.8 As man learns
more of the loving and tireless ministry of the lower orders of the
creature family of this Infinite Spirit, he will all the more admire and
adore the transcendent nature and matchless character of this combined
Action of the Universal Father and the Eternal Son. Indeed is this
Spirit “the eyes of the Lord which are ever over the righteous” and “the
divine ears which are ever open to their prayers.”

5. The Presence of God

(95.4)8:5.1 The
outstanding attribute of the Infinite Spirit is omnipresence. Throughout
all the universe of universes there is everywhere present this
all-pervading spirit, which is so akin to the presence of a universal
and divine mind. Both the Second Person and the Third Person of Deity
are represented on all worlds by their ever-present spirits.(95.5)8:5.2 The Father is infinite
and is therefore limited only by volition. In the bestowal of Adjusters
and in the encircuitment of personality, the Father acts alone, but in
the contact of spirit forces with intelligent beings, he utilizes the
spirits and personalities of the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit. He
is at will spiritually present equally with the Son or with the
Conjoint Actor; he is present with the Son and in the
Spirit. The Father is most certainly everywhere present, and we discern
his presence by and through any and all of these diverse but associated
forces, influences, and presences.(95.6)8:5.3 In your sacred writings the term Spirit of God
seems to be used interchangeably to designate both the Infinite Spirit
on Paradise and the Creative Spirit of your local universe. The Holy
Spirit is the spiritual circuit of this Creative Daughter of the
Paradise Infinite Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a circuit indigenous to
each local universe and is confined to the spiritual realm of that
creation; but the Infinite Spirit is omnipresent.(95.7)8:5.4 There are many spiritual influences, and they are all as one.
Even the work of the Thought Adjusters, though independent of all other
influences, unvaryingly coincides with the spirit ministry of the
combined influences of the Infinite Spirit and a local universe Mother
Spirit. As these spiritual presences operate in the lives of Urantians,
they cannot be segregated. In your minds and upon your souls they
function as one spirit, notwithstanding their diverse origins. And as
this united spiritual ministration is experienced, it becomes to you the
influence of the Supreme, “who is ever able to keep you from failing
and to present you blameless before your Father on high.”(96.1)8:5.5 Ever remember that the Infinite Spirit is the Conjoint
Actor; both the Father and the Son are functioning in and through him;
he is present not only as himself but also as the Father and as the Son
and as the Father-Son. In recognition of this and for many additional
reasons the spirit presence of the Infinite Spirit is often referred to
as “the spirit of God.”(96.2)8:5.6 It would also
be consistent to refer to the liaison of all spiritual ministry as the
spirit of God, for such a liaison is truly the union of the spirits of
God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit, and God the Sevenfold —
even the spirit of God the Supreme.

6. Personality of the Infinite Spirit

(96.3)8:6.1 Do not allow
the widespread bestowal and the far-flung distribution of the Third
Source and Center to obscure or otherwise detract from the fact of his
personality. The Infinite Spirit is a universe presence, an eternal
action, a cosmic power, a holy influence, and a universal mind; he is
all of these and infinitely more, but he is also a true and divine
personality.(96.4)8:6.2 The Infinite
Spirit is a complete and perfect personality, the divine equal and
co-ordinate of the Universal Father and the Eternal Son. The Conjoint
Creator is just as real and visible to the higher intelligences of the
universes as are the Father and the Son; indeed more so, for it is the
Spirit whom all ascenders must attain before they may approach the
Father through the Son.(96.5)8:6.3 The Infinite
Spirit, the Third Person of Deity, is possessed of all the attributes
which you associate with personality. The Spirit is endowed with
absolute mind: “The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of
God.” The Spirit is endowed not only with mind but also with will. In
the bestowal of his gifts it is recorded: “But all these works that one
and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally and as he
wills.”(96.6)8:6.4 “The love of
the Spirit” is real, as also are his sorrows; therefore “Grieve not the
Spirit of God.” Whether we observe the Infinite Spirit as Paradise Deity
or as a local universe Creative Spirit, we find that the Conjoint
Creator is not only the Third Source and Center but also a divine
person. This divine personality also reacts to the universe as a person.
The Spirit speaks to you, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the
Spirit says.” “The Spirit himself makes intercession for you.” The
Spirit exerts a direct and personal influence upon created beings, “For
as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.”(96.7)8:6.5 Even though we
behold the phenomenon of the ministry of the Infinite Spirit to the
remote worlds of the universe of universes, even though we envisage this
same co-ordinating Deity acting in and through the untold legions of
the manifold beings who take origin in the Third Source and Center, even
though we recognize the omnipresence of the Spirit, nonetheless, we
still affirm that this same Third Source and Center is a person, the
Conjoint Creator of all things and all beings and all universes.(96.8)8:6.6 In the
administration of universes the Father, Son, and Spirit are perfectly
and eternally interassociated. Though each is engaged in a personal
ministry to all creation, all three are divinely and absolutely
interlocked in a service of creation and control which forever makes
them one.(97.1)8:6.7 In the person
of the Infinite Spirit the Father and the Son are mutually present,
always and in unqualified perfection, for the Spirit is like the Father
and like the Son, and also like the Father and the Son as they two are
forever one.(97.2)8:6.8 [Presented on
Urantia by a Divine Counselor of Uversa commissioned by the Ancients of
Days to portray the nature and work of the Infinite Spirit.]

The Urantia Book

Paper 9

Relation of the Infinite Spirit to the Universe

(98.1)9:0.1 A STRANGE
thing occurred when, in the presence of Paradise, the Universal Father
and the Eternal Son unite to personalize themselves. Nothing in this
eternity situation foreshadows that the Conjoint Actor would personalize
as an unlimited spirituality co-ordinated with absolute mind and
endowed with unique prerogatives of energy manipulation. His coming into
being completes the Father’s liberation from the bonds of centralized
perfection and from the fetters of personality absolutism. And this
liberation is disclosed in the amazing power of the Conjoint Creator to
create beings well adapted to serve as ministering spirits even to the
material creatures of the subsequently evolving universes.(98.2)9:0.2 The Father is
infinite in love and volition, in spiritual thought and purpose; he is
the universal upholder. The Son is infinite in wisdom and truth, in
spiritual expression and interpretation; he is the universal revealer.
Paradise is infinite in potential for force endowment and in capacity
for energy dominance; it is the universal stabilizer. The Conjoint Actor
possesses unique prerogatives of synthesis, infinite capacity to
co-ordinate all existing universe energies, all actual universe spirits,
and all real universe intellects; the Third Source and Center is the
universal unifier of the manifold energies and diverse creations which
have appeared in consequence of the divine plan and the eternal purpose
of the Universal Father.(98.3)9:0.3 The Infinite
Spirit, the Conjoint Creator, is a universal and divine minister. The
Spirit unceasingly ministers the Son’s mercy and the Father’s love, even
in harmony with the stable, unvarying, and righteous justice of the
Paradise Trinity. His influence and personalities are ever near you;
they really know and truly understand you.(98.4)9:0.4 Throughout the
universes the agencies of the Conjoint Actor ceaselessly manipulate the
forces and energies of all space. Like the First Source and Center, the
Third is responsive to both the spiritual and the material. The
Conjoint Actor is the revelation of the unity of God, in whom all things
consist — things, meanings, and values; energies, minds, and spirits.(98.5)9:0.5 The Infinite
Spirit pervades all space; he indwells the circle of eternity; and the
Spirit, like the Father and the Son, is perfect and changeless —
absolute.

1. Attributes of the Third Source and Center

(98.6)9:1.1 The Third
Source and Center is known by many names, all designative of
relationship and in recognition of function: As God the Spirit, he is
the personality co-ordinate and divine equal of God the Son and God the
Father. As the Infinite Spirit, he is an omnipresent spiritual
influence. As the Universal Manipulator, he is the ancestor of the
power-control creatures and the activator of the cosmic forces of space.
As the Conjoint Actor, he is the joint representative and partnership
executive of the Father-Son. As the Absolute Mind, he is the source of
the endowment of intellect throughout the universes. As the God of
Action, he is the apparent ancestor of motion, change, and relationship.(99.1)9:1.2 Some of the
attributes of the Third Source and Center are derived from the Father,
some from the Son, while still others are not observed to be actively
and personally present in either the Father or the Son — attributes that
can hardly be explained except by assuming that the Father-Son
partnership which eternalizes the Third Source and Center consistently
functions in consonance with, and in recognition of, the eternal fact of
the absoluteness of Paradise. The Conjoint Creator embodies the
fullness of the combined and infinite concepts of the First and Second
Persons of Deity.(99.2)9:1.3 While you
envisage the Father as an original creator and the Son as a spiritual
administrator, you should think of the Third Source and Center as a
universal co-ordinator, a minister of unlimited co-operation. The
Conjoint Actor is the correlator of all actual reality; he is the Deity
repository of the Father’s thought and the Son’s word and in action is
eternally regardful of the material absoluteness of the central Isle.
The Paradise Trinity has ordained the universal order of progress,
and the providence of God is the domain of the Conjoint Creator and the
evolving Supreme Being. No actual or actualizing reality can escape
eventual relationship with the Third Source and Center.(99.3)9:1.4 The Universal
Father presides over the realms of pre-energy, prespirit, and
personality; the Eternal Son dominates the spheres of spiritual
activities; the presence of the Isle of Paradise unifies the domain of
physical energy and materializing power; the Conjoint Actor operates not
only as an infinite spirit representing the Son but also as a universal
manipulator of the forces and energies of Paradise, thus bringing into
existence the universal and absolute mind. The Conjoint Actor functions
throughout the grand universe as a positive and distinct personality,
especially in the higher spheres of spiritual values, physical-energy
relationships, and true mind meanings. He functions specifically
wherever and whenever energy and spirit associate and interact; he
dominates all reactions with mind, wields great power in the spiritual
world, and exerts a mighty influence over energy and matter. At all
times the Third Source is expressive of the nature of the First Source
and Center.(99.4)9:1.5 The Third
Source and Center perfectly and without qualification shares the
omnipresence of the First Source and Center, sometimes being called the
Omnipresent Spirit. In a peculiar and very personal manner the God of
mind shares the omniscience of the Universal Father and his Eternal Son;
the knowledge of the Spirit is profound and complete. The Conjoint
Creator manifests certain phases of the omnipotence of the Universal
Father but is actually omnipotent only in the domain of mind. The Third
Person of Deity is the intellectual center and the universal
administrator of the mind realms; herein is he absolute — his
sovereignty is unqualified.(99.5)9:1.6 The Conjoint
Actor seems to be motivated by the Father-Son partnership, but all his
actions appear to recognize the Father-Paradise relationship. At times
and in certain functions he seems to compensate for the incompleteness
of the development of the experiential Deities — God the Supreme and God
the Ultimate.(100.1)9:1.7 And herein is
an infinite mystery: That the Infinite simultaneously revealed his
infinity in the Son and as Paradise, and then there springs into
existence a being equal to God in divinity, reflective of the Son’s
spiritual nature, and capable of activating the Paradise pattern, a
being provisionally subordinate in sovereignty but in many ways
apparently the most versatile in action. And such apparent
superiority in action is disclosed in an attribute of the Third Source
and Center which is superior even to physical gravity — the universal
manifestation of the Isle of Paradise.(100.2)9:1.8 In addition
to this supercontrol of energy and things physical, the Infinite Spirit
is superbly endowed with those attributes of patience, mercy, and love
which are so exquisitely revealed in his spiritual ministry. The Spirit
is supremely competent to minister love and to overshadow justice with
mercy. God the Spirit possesses all the supernal kindness and merciful
affection of the Original and Eternal Son. The universe of your origin
is being forged out between the anvil of justice and the hammer of
suffering; but those who wield the hammer are the children of mercy, the
spirit offspring of the Infinite Spirit.

2. The Omnipresent Spirit

(100.3)9:2.1 God is spirit
in a threefold sense: He himself is spirit; in his Son he appears as
spirit without qualification; in the Conjoint Actor, as spirit allied
with mind. And in addition to these spiritual realities, we think we
discern levels of experiential spirit phenomena — the spirits of the
Supreme Being, Ultimate Deity, and Deity Absolute.(100.4)9:2.2 The Infinite
Spirit is just as much a complement of the Eternal Son as the Son is a
complement of the Universal Father. The Eternal Son is a spiritualized
personalization of the Father; the Infinite Spirit is a personalized
spiritualization of the Eternal Son and the Universal Father.(100.5)9:2.3 There are
many untrammeled lines of spiritual force and sources of supermaterial
power linking the people of Urantia directly with the Deities of
Paradise. There exist the connection of the Thought Adjusters direct
with the Universal Father, the widespread influence of the
spiritual-gravity urge of the Eternal Son, and the spiritual presence of
the Conjoint Creator. There is a difference in function between the
spirit of the Son and the spirit of the Spirit. The Third Person in his
spiritual ministry may function as mind plus spirit or as spirit alone.(100.6)9:2.4 In addition
to these Paradise presences, Urantians benefit by the spiritual
influences and activities of the local and the superuniverse, with their
almost endless array of loving personalities who ever lead the true of
purpose and the honest of heart upward and inward towards the ideals of
divinity and the goal of supreme perfection.(100.7)9:2.5 The presence of the universal spirit of the Eternal Son we know —
we can unmistakably recognize it. The presence of the Infinite Spirit,
the Third Person of Deity, even mortal man may know, for material
creatures can actually experience the beneficence of this divine
influence which functions as the Holy Spirit of local universe bestowal
upon the races of mankind. Human beings can also in some degree become
conscious of the Adjuster, the impersonal presence of the Universal
Father. These divine spirits which work for man’s uplifting and
spiritualization all act in unison and in perfect co-operation. They are
as one in the spiritual operation of the plans of mortal ascension and
perfection attainment.

3. The Universal Manipulator

(101.1)9:3.1 The Isle of
Paradise is the source and substance of physical gravity; and that
should be sufficient to inform you that gravity is one of the most real
and eternally dependable things in the whole physical universe of
universes. Gravity cannot be modified or annulled except by the forces
and energies conjointly sponsored by the Father and the Son, which have
been intrusted to, and are functionally associated with, the person of
the Third Source and Center.(101.2)9:3.2 The Infinite Spirit possesses a unique and amazing power — antigravity.
This power is not functionally (observably) present in either the
Father or the Son. This ability to withstand the pull of material
gravity, inherent in the Third Source, is revealed in the personal
reactions of the Conjoint Actor to certain phases of universe
relationships. And this unique attribute is transmissible to certain of
the higher personalities of the Infinite Spirit.(101.3)9:3.3 Antigravity
can annul gravity within a local frame; it does so by the exercise of
equal force presence. It operates only with reference to material
gravity, and it is not the action of mind. The gravity-resistant
phenomenon of a gyroscope is a fair illustration of the effect of antigravity but of no value to illustrate the cause of antigravity.(101.4)9:3.4 Still further
does the Conjoint Actor display powers which can transcend force and
neutralize energy. Such powers operate by slowing down energy to the
point of materialization and by other techniques unknown to you.(101.5)9:3.5 The Conjoint Creator is not energy nor the source of energy nor the destiny of energy; he is the manipulator
of energy. The Conjoint Creator is action — motion, change,
modification, co-ordination, stabilization, and equilibrium. The
energies subject to the direct or indirect control of Paradise are by
nature responsive to the acts of the Third Source and Center and his
manifold agencies.(101.6)9:3.6 The universe
of universes is permeated by the power-control creatures of the Third
Source and Center: physical controllers, power directors, power centers,
and other representatives of the God of Action who have to do with the
regulation and stabilization of physical energies. These unique
creatures of physical function all possess varying attributes of power
control, such as antigravity, which they utilize in their efforts to
establish the physical equilibrium of the matter and energies of the
grand universe.(101.7)9:3.7 All these
material activities of the God of Action appear to relate his function
to the Isle of Paradise, and indeed the agencies of power are all
regardful of, even dependent on, the absoluteness of the eternal Isle.
But the Conjoint Actor does not act for, or in response to, Paradise. He
acts, personally, for the Father and the Son. Paradise is not a person.
The nonpersonal, impersonal, and otherwise not personal doings of the
Third Source and Center are all volitional acts of the Conjoint Actor
himself; they are not reflections, derivations, or repercussions of
anything or anybody.(101.8)9:3.8 Paradise is
the pattern of infinity; the God of Action is the activator of that
pattern. Paradise is the material fulcrum of infinity; the agencies of
the Third Source and Center are the levers of intelligence which
motivate the material level and inject spontaneity into the mechanism of
the physical creation.

4. The Absolute Mind

(102.1)9:4.1 There is an
intellectual nature of the Third Source and Center that is distinct from
his physical and spiritual attributes. Such a nature is hardly
contactable, but it is associable — intellectually though not
personally. It is distinguishable from the physical attributes and the
spiritual character of the Third Person on mind levels of function, but
to the discernment of personalities this nature never functions
independently of physical or spiritual manifestations.(102.2)9:4.2 The absolute
mind is the mind of the Third Person; it is inseparable from the
personality of God the Spirit. Mind, in functioning beings, is not
separated from energy or spirit, or both. Mind is not inherent in
energy; energy is receptive and responsive to mind; mind can be
superimposed upon energy, but consciousness is not inherent in the
purely material level. Mind does not have to be added to pure spirit,
for spirit is innately conscious and identifying. Spirit is always
intelligent, minded in some way. It may be this mind or that
mind, it may be premind or supermind, even spirit mind, but it does the
equivalent of thinking and knowing. The insight of spirit transcends,
supervenes, and theoretically antedates the consciousness of mind.(102.3)9:4.3 The Conjoint
Creator is absolute only in the domain of mind, in the realms of
universal intelligence. The mind of the Third Source and Center is
infinite; it utterly transcends the active and functioning mind circuits
of the universe of universes. The mind endowment of the seven
superuniverses is derived from the Seven Master Spirits, the primary
personalities of the Conjoint Creator. These Master Spirits distribute
mind to the grand universe as the cosmic mind, and your local universe
is pervaded by the Nebadon variant of the Orvonton type of cosmic mind.(102.4)9:4.4 Infinite mind
ignores time, ultimate mind transcends time, cosmic mind is conditioned
by time. And so with space: The Infinite Mind is independent of space,
but as descent is made from the infinite to the adjutant levels of mind,
intellect must increasingly reckon with the fact and limitations of
space.(102.5)9:4.5 Cosmic force
responds to mind even as cosmic mind responds to spirit. Spirit is
divine purpose, and spirit mind is divine purpose in action. Energy is
thing, mind is meaning, spirit is value. Even in time and space, mind
establishes those relative relationships between energy and spirit which
are suggestive of mutual kinship in eternity.(102.6)9:4.6 Mind
transmutes the values of spirit into the meanings of intellect; volition
has power to bring the meanings of mind to fruit in both the material
and spiritual domains. The Paradise ascent involves a relative and
differential growth in spirit, mind, and energy. The personality is the
unifier of these components of experiential individuality.

5. The Ministry of Mind

(102.7)9:5.1 The Third
Source and Center is infinite in mind. If the universe should grow to
infinity, still his mind potential would be adequate to endow limitless
numbers of creatures with suitable minds and other prerequisites of
intellect.(102.8)9:5.2 In the domain of created mind
the Third Person, with his co-ordinate and subordinate associates,
rules supreme. The realms of creature mind are of exclusive origin in
the Third Source and Center; he is the bestower of mind. Even the Father
fragments find it impossible to indwell the minds of men until the way
has been properly prepared for them by the mind action and spiritual
function of the Infinite Spirit.(103.1)9:5.3 The unique
feature of mind is that it can be bestowed upon such a wide range of
life. Through his creative and creature associates the Third Source and
Center ministers to all minds on all spheres. He ministers to human and
subhuman intellect through the adjutants of the local universes and,
through the agency of the physical controllers, ministers even to the
lowest nonexperiencing entities of the most primitive types of living
things. And always is the direction of mind a ministry of mind-spirit or
mind-energy personalities.(103.2)9:5.4 Since the
Third Person of Deity is the source of mind, it is quite natural that
the evolutionary will creatures find it easier to form comprehensible
concepts of the Infinite Spirit than they do of either the Eternal Son
or the Universal Father. The reality of the Conjoint Creator is
disclosed imperfectly in the very existence of human mind. The Conjoint
Creator is the ancestor of the cosmic mind, and the mind of man is an
individualized circuit, an impersonal portion, of that cosmic mind as it
is bestowed in a local universe by a Creative Daughter of the Third
Source and Center.(103.3)9:5.5 Because the
Third Person is the source of mind, do not presume to reckon that all
phenomena of mind are divine. Human intellect is rooted in the material
origin of the animal races. Universe intelligence is no more a true
revelation of God who is mind than is physical nature a true revelation
of the beauty and harmony of Paradise. Perfection is in nature, but
nature is not perfect. The Conjoint Creator is the source of mind, but
mind is not the Conjoint Creator.(103.4)9:5.6 Mind, on
Urantia, is a compromise between the essence of thought perfection and
the evolving mentality of your immature human nature. The plan for your
intellectual evolution is, indeed, one of sublime perfection, but you
are far short of that divine goal as you function in the tabernacles of
the flesh. Mind is truly of divine origin, and it does have a divine
destiny, but your mortal minds are not yet of divine dignity.(103.5)9:5.7 Too often,
all too often, you mar your minds by insincerity and sear them with
unrighteousness; you subject them to animal fear and distort them by
useless anxiety. Therefore, though the source of mind is divine, mind as
you know it on your world of ascension can hardly become the object of
great admiration, much less of adoration or worship. The contemplation
of the immature and inactive human intellect should lead only to
reactions of humility.

6. The Mind-Gravity Circuit

(103.6)9:6.1 The Third Source and Center, the universal intelligence, is personally conscious of every mind,
every intellect, in all creation, and he maintains a personal and
perfect contact with all these physical, morontial, and spiritual
creatures of mind endowment in the far-flung universes. All these
activities of mind are grasped in the absolute mind-gravity circuit
which focalizes in the Third Source and Center and is a part of the
personal consciousness of the Infinite Spirit.(103.7)9:6.2 Much as the
Father draws all personality to himself, and as the Son attracts all
spiritual reality, so does the Conjoint Actor exercise a drawing power
on all minds; he unqualifiedly dominates and controls the universal mind
circuit. All true and genuine intellectual values, all divine thoughts
and perfect ideas, are unerringly drawn into this absolute circuit of
mind.(104.1)9:6.3 Mind gravity
can operate independently of material and spiritual gravity, but
wherever and whenever the latter two impinge, mind gravity always
functions. When all three are associated, personality gravity may
embrace the material creature — physical or morontial, finite or
absonite. But irrespective of this, the endowment of mind even in
impersonal beings qualifies them to think and endows them with
consciousness despite the total absence of personality.(104.2)9:6.4 Selfhood of
personality dignity, human or divine, immortal or potentially immortal,
does not however originate in either spirit, mind, or matter; it is the
bestowal of the Universal Father. Neither is the interaction of spirit,
mind, and material gravity a prerequisite to the appearance of
personality gravity. The Father’s circuit may embrace a mind-material
being who is unresponsive to spirit gravity, or it may include a
mind-spirit being who is unresponsive to material gravity. The operation
of personality gravity is always a volitional act of the Universal
Father.(104.3)9:6.5 While mind is
energy associated in purely material beings and spirit associated in
purely spiritual personalities, innumerable orders of personality,
including the human, possess minds that are associated with both energy
and spirit. The spiritual aspects of creature mind unfailingly respond
to the spirit-gravity pull of the Eternal Son; the material features
respond to the gravity urge of the material universe.(104.4)9:6.6 Cosmic mind,
when not associated with either energy or spirit, is subject to the
gravity demands of neither material nor spiritual circuits. Pure mind is
subject only to the universal gravity grasp of the Conjoint Actor. Pure
mind is close of kin to infinite mind, and infinite mind (the
theoretical co-ordinate of the absolutes of spirit and energy) is
apparently a law in itself.(104.5)9:6.7 The greater
the spirit-energy divergence, the greater the observable function of
mind; the lesser the diversity of energy and spirit, the lesser the
observable function of mind. Apparently, the maximum function of the
cosmic mind is in the time universes of space. Here mind seems to
function in a mid-zone between energy and spirit, but this is not true
of the higher levels of mind; on Paradise, energy and spirit are
essentially one.(104.6)9:6.8 The
mind-gravity circuit is dependable; it emanates from the Third Person of
Deity on Paradise, but not all the observable function of mind is
predictable. Throughout all known creation there parallels this circuit
of mind some little-understood presence whose function is not
predictable. We believe that this unpredictability is partly
attributable to the function of the Universal Absolute. What this
function is, we do not know; what actuates it, we can only conjecture;
concerning its relation to creatures, we can only speculate.(104.7)9:6.9 Certain
phases of the unpredictability of finite mind may be due to the
incompleteness of the Supreme Being, and there is a vast zone of
activities wherein the Conjoint Actor and the Universal Absolute may
possibly be tangent. There is much about mind that is unknown, but of
this we are sure: The Infinite Spirit is the perfect expression of the
mind of the Creator to all creatures; the Supreme Being is the evolving
expression of the minds of all creatures to their Creator.

7. Universe Reflectivity

(105.1)9:7.1 The Conjoint
Actor is able to co-ordinate all levels of universe actuality in such
manner as to make possible the simultaneous recognition of the mental,
the material, and the spiritual. This is the phenomenon of universe reflectivity,
that unique and inexplicable power to see, hear, sense, and know all
things as they transpire throughout a superuniverse, and to focalize, by
reflectivity, all this information and knowledge at any desired point.
The action of reflectivity is shown in perfection on each of the
headquarters worlds of the seven superuniverses. It is also operative
throughout all sectors of the superuniverses and within the boundaries
of the local universes. Reflectivity finally focalizes on Paradise.(105.2)9:7.2 The
phenomenon of reflectivity, as it is disclosed on the superuniverse
headquarters worlds in the amazing performances of the reflective
personalities there stationed, represents the most complex
interassociation of all phases of existence to be found in all creation.
Lines of spirit can be traced back to the Son, physical energy to
Paradise, and mind to the Third Source; but in the extraordinary
phenomenon of universe reflectivity there is a unique and exceptional
unification of all three, so associated as to enable the universe rulers
to know about remote conditions instantaneously, simultaneously with
their occurrence.(105.3)9:7.3 Much of the
technique of reflectivity we comprehend, but there are many phases which
truly baffle us. We know that the Conjoint Actor is the universe center
of the mind circuit, that he is the ancestor of the cosmic mind, and
that cosmic mind operates under the dominance of the absolute mind
gravity of the Third Source and Center. We know further that the
circuits of the cosmic mind influence the intellectual levels of all
known existence; they contain the universal space reports, and just as
certainly they focus in the Seven Master Spirits and converge in the
Third Source and Center.(105.4)9:7.4 The
relationship between the finite cosmic mind and the divine absolute mind
appears to be evolving in the experiential mind of the Supreme. We are
taught that, in the dawn of time, this experiential mind was bestowed
upon the Supreme by the Infinite Spirit, and we conjecture that certain
features of the phenomenon of reflectivity can be accounted for only by
postulating the activity of the Supreme Mind. If the Supreme is not
concerned in reflectivity, we are at a loss to explain the intricate
transactions and unerring operations of this consciousness of the
cosmos.(105.5)9:7.5 Reflectivity
appears to be omniscience within the limits of the experiential finite
and may represent the emergence of the presence-consciousness of the
Supreme Being. If this assumption is true, then the utilization of
reflectivity in any of its phases is equivalent to partial contact with
the consciousness of the Supreme.

8. Personalities of the Infinite Spirit

(105.6)9:8.1 The Infinite
Spirit possesses full power to transmit many of his powers and
prerogatives to his co-ordinate and subordinate personalities and
agencies.(105.7)9:8.2 The first
Deity-creating act of the Infinite Spirit, functioning apart from the
Trinity but in some unrevealed association with the Father and the Son,
personalized in the existence of the Seven Master Spirits of Paradise,
the distributors of the Infinite Spirit to the universes.(106.1)9:8.3 There is no
direct representative of the Third Source and Center on the headquarters
of a superuniverse. Each of these seven creations is dependent on one
of the Master Spirits of Paradise, who acts through the seven Reflective
Spirits situated at the capital of the superuniverse.p>
(106.2)9:8.4 The next
and continuing creative act of the Infinite Spirit is disclosed, from
time to time, in the production of the Creative Spirits. Every time the
Universal Father and the Eternal Son become parent to a Creator Son, the
Infinite Spirit becomes ancestor to a local universe Creative Spirit
who becomes the close associate of that Creator Son in all subsequent
universe experience.(106.3)9:8.5 Just as it is
necessary to distinguish between the Eternal Son and the Creator Sons,
so it is necessary to differentiate between the Infinite Spirit and the
Creative Spirits, the local universe co-ordinates of the Creator Sons.
What the Infinite Spirit is to the total creation, a Creative Spirit is
to a local universe.(106.4)9:8.6 The Third
Source and Center is represented in the grand universe by a vast array
of ministering spirits, messengers, teachers, adjudicators, helpers, and
advisers, together with supervisors of certain circuits of physical,
morontial, and spiritual nature. Not all of these beings are
personalities in the strict meaning of the term. Personality of the
finite-creature variety is characterized by:

(106.7)9:8.9 There are creator personalities and creature personalities, and in addition to these two fundamental types there are personalities of the Third Source and Center,
beings who are personal to the Infinite Spirit, but who are not
unqualifiedly personal to creature beings. These Third Source
personalities are not a part of the Father’s personality circuit. First
Source personality and Third Source personality are mutually
contactable; all personality is contactable.(106.8)9:8.10 The Father
bestows personality by his personal free will. Why he does so we can
only conjecture; how he does so we do not know. Neither do we know why
the Third Source bestows non-Father personality, but this the Infinite
Spirit does in his own behalf, in creative conjunction with the Eternal
Son and in numerous ways unknown to you. The Infinite Spirit can also
act for the Father in the bestowal of First Source personality.(106.9)9:8.11 There are
numerous types of Third Source personalities. The Infinite Spirit
bestows Third Source personality upon numerous groups who are not
included in the Father’s personality circuit, such as certain of the
power directors. Likewise does the Infinite Spirit treat as
personalities numerous groups of beings, such as the Creative Spirits,
who are in a class by themselves in their relations to encircuited
creatures of the Father.(106.10)9:8.12 Both First
Source and Third Source personalities are endowed with all and more
than man associates with the concept of personality; they have minds
embracing memory, reason, judgment, creative imagination, idea
association, decision, choice, and numerous additional powers of
intellect wholly unknown to mortals. With few exceptions the orders
revealed to you possess form and distinct individuality; they are real
beings. A majority of them are visible to all orders of spirit
existence.(107.1)9:8.13 Even you
will be able to see your spiritual associates of the lower orders as
soon as you are delivered from the limited vision of your present
material eyes and have been endowed with a morontia form with its
enlarged sensitivity to the reality of spiritual things.(107.2)9:8.14The functional family of the Third Source and Center, as it is revealed in these narratives, falls into three great groups:

(107.3)9:8.15 I. The Supreme Spirits. A group of composite origin that embraces, among others, the following orders:

(107.4)9:8.16 1. The Seven Master Spirits of Paradise.(107.5)9:8.17 2. The Reflective Spirits of the Superuniverses.(107.6)9:8.18 3. The Creative Spirits of the Local Universes.

(107.7)9:8.19 II. The Power Directors. A group of control creatures and agencies that function throughout all organized space.(107.8)9:8.20 III. The Personalities of the Infinite Spirit.
This designation does not necessarily imply that these beings are Third
Source personalities though some of them are unique as will creatures.
They are usually grouped in three major classifications:

(107.9)9:8.21 1. The Higher Personalities of the Infinite Spirit.(107.10)9:8.22 2. The Messenger Hosts of Space.(107.11)9:8.23 3. The Ministering Spirits of Time.

(107.12)9:8.24 These
groups serve on Paradise, in the central or residential universe, in the
superuniverses, and they embrace orders that function in the local
universes, even to the constellations, systems, and planets.(107.13)9:8.25 The spirit
personalities of the vast family of the Divine and Infinite Spirit are
forever dedicated to the service of the ministry of the love of God and
the mercy of the Son to all the intelligent creatures of the
evolutionary worlds of time and space. These spirit beings constitute
the living ladder whereby mortal man climbs from chaos to glory.(107.14)9:8.26 [Revealed
on Urantia by a Divine Counselor of Uversa commissioned by the Ancients
of Days to portray the nature and work of the Infinite Spirit.]

The Urantia Book

Paper 10

The Paradise Trinity

(108.1)10:0.1 THE
Paradise Trinity of eternal Deities facilitates the Father’s escape from
personality absolutism. The Trinity perfectly associates the limitless
expression of God’s infinite personal will with the absoluteness of
Deity. The Eternal Son and the various Sons of divine origin, together
with the Conjoint Actor and his universe children, effectively provide
for the Father’s liberation from the limitations otherwise inherent in
primacy, perfection, changelessness, eternity, universality,
absoluteness, and infinity.(108.2)10:0.2 The
Paradise Trinity effectively provides for the full expression and
perfect revelation of the eternal nature of Deity. The Stationary Sons
of the Trinity likewise afford a full and perfect revelation of divine
justice. The Trinity is Deity unity, and this unity rests eternally upon
the absolute foundations of the divine oneness of the three original
and co-ordinate and coexistent personalities, God the Father, God the
Son, and God the Spirit.(108.3)10:0.3 From the
present situation on the circle of eternity, looking backward into the
endless past, we can discover only one inescapable inevitability in
universe affairs, and that is the Paradise Trinity. I deem the Trinity
to have been inevitable. As I view the past, present, and future of
time, I consider nothing else in all the universe of universes to have
been inevitable. The present master universe, viewed in retrospect or in
prospect, is unthinkable without the Trinity. Given the Paradise
Trinity, we can postulate alternate or even multiple ways of doing all
things, but without the Trinity of Father, Son, and Spirit we are unable
to conceive how the Infinite could achieve threefold and co-ordinate
personalization in the face of the absolute oneness of Deity. No other
concept of creation measures up to the Trinity standards of the
completeness of the absoluteness inherent in Deity unity coupled with
the repleteness of volitional liberation inherent in the threefold
personalization of Deity.

1. Self-Distribution of the First Source and Center

(108.4)10:1.1 It would
seem that the Father, back in eternity, inaugurated a policy of profound
self-distribution. There is inherent in the selfless, loving, and
lovable nature of the Universal Father something which causes him to
reserve to himself the exercise of only those powers and that authority
which he apparently finds it impossible to delegate or to bestow.(108.5)10:1.2 The
Universal Father all along has divested himself of every part of himself
that was bestowable on any other Creator or creature. He has delegated
to his divine Sons and their associated intelligences every power and
all authority that could be delegated. He has actually transferred to
his Sovereign Sons, in their respective universes, every prerogative of
administrative authority that was transferable. In the affairs of a
local universe, he has made each Sovereign Creator Son just as perfect,
competent, and authoritative as is the Eternal Son in the original and
central universe. He has given away, actually bestowed, with the dignity
and sanctity of personality possession, all of himself and all of his
attributes, everything he possibly could divest himself of, in every
way, in every age, in every place, and to every person, and in every
universe except that of his central indwelling.(109.1)10:1.3 Divine
personality is not self-centered; self-distribution and sharing of
personality characterize divine freewill selfhood. Creatures crave
association with other personal creatures; Creators are moved to share
divinity with their universe children; the personality of the Infinite
is disclosed as the Universal Father, who shares reality of being and
equality of self with two co-ordinate personalities, the Eternal Son and
the Conjoint Actor.(109.2)10:1.4 For
knowledge concerning the Father’s personality and divine attributes we
will always be dependent on the revelations of the Eternal Son, for when
the conjoint act of creation was effected, when the Third Person of
Deity sprang into personality existence and executed the combined
concepts of his divine parents, the Father ceased to exist as the
unqualified personality. With the coming into being of the Conjoint
Actor and the materialization of the central core of creation, certain
eternal changes took place. God gave himself as an absolute personality
to his Eternal Son. Thus does the Father bestow the “personality of
infinity” upon his only-begotten Son, while they both bestow the
“conjoint personality” of their eternal union upon the Infinite Spirit.(109.3)10:1.5 For these
and other reasons beyond the concept of the finite mind, it is
exceedingly difficult for the human creature to comprehend God’s
infinite father-personality except as it is universally revealed in the
Eternal Son and, with the Son, is universally active in the Infinite
Spirit.(109.4)10:1.6 Since the
Paradise Sons of God visit the evolutionary worlds and sometimes even
there dwell in the likeness of mortal flesh, and since these bestowals
make it possible for mortal man actually to know something of the nature
and character of divine personality, therefore must the creatures of
the planetary spheres look to the bestowals of these Paradise Sons for
reliable and trustworthy information regarding the Father, the Son, and
the Spirit.

2. Deity Personalization

(109.5)10:2.1 By the
technique of trinitization the Father divests himself of that
unqualified spirit personality which is the Son, but in so doing he
constitutes himself the Father of this very Son and thereby possesses
himself of unlimited capacity to become the divine Father of all
subsequently created, eventuated, or other personalized types of
intelligent will creatures. As the absolute and unqualified personality the Father can function only as and with the Son, but as a personal Father
he continues to bestow personality upon the diverse hosts of the
differing levels of intelligent will creatures, and he forever maintains
personal relations of loving association with this vast family of
universe children.(109.6)10:2.2 After the
Father has bestowed upon the personality of his Son the fullness of
himself, and when this act of self-bestowal is complete and perfect, of
the infinite power and nature which are thus existent in the Father-Son
union, the eternal partners conjointly bestow those qualities and
attributes which constitute still another being like themselves; and
this conjoint personality, the Infinite Spirit, completes the
existential personalization of Deity.(110.1)10:2.3 The Son is
indispensable to the fatherhood of God. The Spirit is indispensable to
the fraternity of the Second and Third Persons. Three persons are a
minimum social group, but this is least of all the many reasons for
believing in the inevitability of the Conjoint Actor.(110.2)10:2.4 The First Source and Center is the infinite father-personality, the unlimited source personality. The Eternal Son is the unqualified personality-absolute,
that divine being who stands throughout all time and eternity as the
perfect revelation of the personal nature of God. The Infinite Spirit is
the conjoint personality, the unique personal consequence of the everlasting Father-Son union.(110.3)10:2.5 The
personality of the First Source and Center is the personality of
infinity minus the absolute personality of the Eternal Son. The
personality of the Third Source and Center is the superadditive
consequence of the union of the liberated Father-personality and the
absolute Son-personality.(110.4)10:2.6 The
Universal Father, the Eternal Son, and the Infinite Spirit are unique
persons; none is a duplicate; each is original; all are united.(110.5)10:2.7 The Eternal
Son alone experiences the fullness of divine personality relationship,
consciousness of both sonship with the Father and paternity to the
Spirit and of divine equality with both Father-ancestor and
Spirit-associate. The Father knows the experience of having a Son who is
his equal, but the Father knows no ancestral antecedents. The Eternal
Son has the experience of sonship, recognition of personality ancestry,
and at the same time the Son is conscious of being joint parent to the
Infinite Spirit. The Infinite Spirit is conscious of twofold personality
ancestry but is not parental to a co-ordinate Deity personality. With
the Spirit the existential cycle of Deity personalization attains
completion; the primary personalities of the Third Source and Center are
experiential and are seven in number.(110.6)10:2.8 I am of
origin in the Paradise Trinity. I know the Trinity as unified Deity; I
also know that the Father, Son, and Spirit exist and act in their
definite personal capacities. I positively know that they not only act
personally and collectively, but that they also co-ordinate their
performances in various groupings, so that in the end they function in
seven different singular and plural capacities. And since these seven
associations exhaust the possibilities for such divinity combination, it
is inevitable that the realities of the universe shall appear in seven
variations of values, meanings, and personality.

3. The Three Persons of Deity

(110.7)10:3.1
Notwithstanding there is only one Deity, there are three positive and
divine personalizations of Deity. Regarding the endowment of man with
the divine Adjusters, the Father said: “Let us make mortal man in our
own image.” Repeatedly throughout the Urantian writings there occurs
this reference to the acts and doings of plural Deity, clearly showing
recognition of the existence and working of the three Sources and
Centers.(110.8)10:3.2 We are
taught that the Son and the Spirit sustain the same and equal relations
to the Father in the Trinity association. In eternity and as Deities
they undoubtedly do, but in time and as personalities they certainly
disclose relationships of a very diverse nature. Looking from Paradise
out on the universes, these relationships do seem to be very similar,
but when viewed from the domains of space, they appear to be quite
different.(111.1)10:3.3 The divine
Sons are indeed the “Word of God,” but the children of the Spirit are
truly the “Act of God.” God speaks through the Son and, with the Son,
acts through the Infinite Spirit, while in all universe activities the
Son and the Spirit are exquisitely fraternal, working as two equal
brothers with admiration and love for an honored and divinely respected
common Father.(111.2)10:3.4 The Father,
Son, and Spirit are certainly equal in nature, co-ordinate in being,
but there are unmistakable differences in their universe performances,
and when acting alone, each person of Deity is apparently limited in
absoluteness.(111.3)10:3.5 The
Universal Father, prior to his self-willed divestment of the
personality, powers, and attributes which constitute the Son and the
Spirit, seems to have been (philosophically considered) an unqualified,
absolute, and infinite Deity. But such a theoretical First Source and
Center without a Son could not in any sense of the word be considered
the Universal Father; fatherhood is not real without sonship.
Furthermore, the Father, to have been absolute in a total sense, must
have existed at some eternally distant moment alone. But he never had
such a solitary existence; the Son and the Spirit are both coeternal
with the Father. The First Source and Center has always been, and will
forever be, the eternal Father of the Original Son and, with the Son,
the eternal progenitor of the Infinite Spirit.(111.4)10:3.6 We observe
that the Father has divested himself of all direct manifestations of
absoluteness except absolute fatherhood and absolute volition. We do not
know whether volition is an inalienable attribute of the Father; we can
only observe that he did not divest himself of volition. Such infinity of will must have been eternally inherent in the First Source and Center.(111.5)10:3.7 In
bestowing absoluteness of personality upon the Eternal Son, the
Universal Father escapes from the fetters of personality absolutism, but
in so doing he takes a step which makes it forever impossible for him
to act alone as the personality-absolute. And with the final
personalization of coexistent Deity — the Conjoint Actor — there ensues
the critical trinitarian interdependence of the three divine
personalities with regard to the totality of Deity function in absolute.(111.6)10:3.8 God is the
Father-Absolute of all personalities in the universe of universes. The
Father is personally absolute in liberty of action, but in the universes
of time and space, made, in the making, and yet to be made, the Father
is not discernibly absolute as total Deity except in the Paradise
Trinity.(111.7)10:3.9 The First Source and Center functions outside of Havona in the phenomenal universes as follows:

(111.8)10:3.10 1. As creator, through the Creator Sons, his grandsons.(111.9)10:3.11 2. As controller, through the gravity center of Paradise.(111.10)10:3.12 3. As spirit, through the Eternal Son.(111.11)10:3.13 4. As mind, through the Conjoint Creator.(111.12)10:3.14 5. As a Father, he maintains parental contact with all creatures through his personality circuit.(111.13)10:3.15 6. As a person, he acts directly throughout creation by his exclusive fragments — in mortal man by the Thought Adjusters.(111.14)10:3.16 7. As total Deity, he functions only in the Paradise Trinity.

(112.1)10:3.17 All these
relinquishments and delegations of jurisdiction by the Universal Father
are wholly voluntary and self-imposed. The all-powerful Father
purposefully assumes these limitations of universe authority.(112.2)10:3.18 The
Eternal Son seems to function as one with the Father in all spiritual
respects except in the bestowals of the God fragments and in other
prepersonal activities. Neither is the Son closely identified with the
intellectual activities of material creatures nor with the energy
activities of the material universes. As absolute the Son functions as a
person and only in the domain of the spiritual universe.(112.3)10:3.19 The
Infinite Spirit is amazingly universal and unbelievably versatile in all
his operations. He performs in the spheres of mind, matter, and spirit.
The Conjoint Actor represents the Father-Son association, but he also
functions as himself. He is not directly concerned with physical
gravity, with spiritual gravity, or with the personality circuit, but he
more or less participates in all other universe activities. While
apparently dependent on three existential and absolute gravity controls,
the Infinite Spirit appears to exercise three supercontrols. This
threefold endowment is employed in many ways to transcend and seemingly
to neutralize even the manifestations of primary forces and energies,
right up to the superultimate borders of absoluteness. In certain
situations these supercontrols absolutely transcend even the primal
manifestations of cosmic reality.

4. The Trinity Union of Deity

(112.4)10:4.1 Of all
absolute associations, the Paradise Trinity (the first triunity) is
unique as an exclusive association of personal Deity. God functions as
God only in relation to God and to those who can know God, but as
absolute Deity only in the Paradise Trinity and in relation to universe
totality.(112.5)10:4.2 Eternal
Deity is perfectly unified; nevertheless there are three perfectly
individualized persons of Deity. The Paradise Trinity makes possible the
simultaneous expression of all the diversity of the character traits
and infinite powers of the First Source and Center and his eternal
co-ordinates and of all the divine unity of the universe functions of
undivided Deity.(112.6)10:4.3 The Trinity
is an association of infinite persons functioning in a nonpersonal
capacity but not in contravention of personality. The illustration is
crude, but a father, son, and grandson could form a corporate entity
which would be nonpersonal but nonetheless subject to their personal
wills.(112.7)10:4.4 The Paradise Trinity is real.
It exists as the Deity union of Father, Son, and Spirit; yet the
Father, the Son, or the Spirit, or any two of them, can function in
relation to this selfsame Paradise Trinity. The Father, Son, and Spirit
can collaborate in a non-Trinity manner, but not as three Deities. As
persons they can collaborate as they choose, but that is not the
Trinity.(112.8)10:4.5 Ever
remember that what the Infinite Spirit does is the function of the
Conjoint Actor. Both the Father and the Son are functioning in and
through and as him. But it would be futile to attempt to elucidate the
Trinity mystery: three as one and in one, and one as two and acting for
two.(112.9)10:4.6 The Trinity
is so related to total universe affairs that it must be reckoned with
in our attempts to explain the totality of any isolated cosmic event or
personality relationship. The Trinity functions on all levels of the
cosmos, and mortal man is limited to the finite level; therefore must
man be content with a finite concept of the Trinity as the Trinity.(113.1)10:4.7 As a mortal
in the flesh you should view the Trinity in accordance with your
individual enlightenment and in harmony with the reactions of your mind
and soul. You can know very little of the absoluteness of the Trinity,
but as you ascend Paradiseward, you will many times experience
astonishment at successive revelations and unexpected discoveries of
Trinity supremacy and ultimacy, if not of absoluteness.

5. Functions of the Trinity

(113.2)10:5.1 The
personal Deities have attributes, but it is hardly consistent to speak
of the Trinity as having attributes. This association of divine beings
may more properly be regarded as having functions, such as
justice administration, totality attitudes, co-ordinate action, and
cosmic overcontrol. These functions are actively supreme, ultimate, and
(within the limits of Deity) absolute as far as all living realities of
personality value are concerned.(113.3)10:5.2 The
functions of the Paradise Trinity are not simply the sum of the Father’s
apparent endowment of divinity plus those specialized attributes that
are unique in the personal existence of the Son and the Spirit. The
Trinity association of the three Paradise Deities results in the
evolution, eventuation, and deitization of new meanings, values, powers,
and capacities for universal revelation, action, and administration.
Living associations, human families, social groups, or the Paradise
Trinity are not augmented by mere arithmetical summation. The group
potential is always far in excess of the simple sum of the attributes of
the component individuals.(113.4)10:5.3 The Trinity
maintains a unique attitude as the Trinity towards the entire universe
of the past, present, and future. And the functions of the Trinity can
best be considered in relation to the universe attitudes of the Trinity.
Such attitudes are simultaneous and may be multiple concerning any
isolated situation or event:

(113.5)10:5.4 1. Attitude toward the Finite.
The maximum self-limitation of the Trinity is its attitude toward the
finite. The Trinity is not a person, nor is the Supreme Being an
exclusive personalization of the Trinity, but the Supreme is the nearest
approach to a power-personality focalization of the Trinity which can
be comprehended by finite creatures. Hence the Trinity in relation to
the finite is sometimes spoken of as the Trinity of Supremacy.(113.6)10:5.5 2. Attitude toward the Absonite.
The Paradise Trinity has regard for those levels of existence which are
more than finite but less than absolute, and this relationship is
sometimes denominated the Trinity of Ultimacy. Neither the Ultimate nor
the Supreme are wholly representative of the Paradise Trinity, but in a
qualified sense and to their respective levels, each seems to represent
the Trinity during the prepersonal eras of experiential-power
development.(113.7)10:5.6 3. The Absolute Attitude of the Paradise Trinity is in relation to absolute existences and culminates in the action of total Deity.

(113.8)10:5.7 The Trinity
Infinite involves the co-ordinate action of all triunity relationships
of the First Source and Center — undeified as well as deified — and
hence is very difficult for personalities to grasp. In the contemplation
of the Trinity as infinite, do not ignore the seven triunities; thereby
certain difficulties of understanding may be avoided, and certain
paradoxes may be partially resolved.(114.1)10:5.8 But I do
not command language which would enable me to convey to the limited
human mind the full truth and the eternal significance of the Paradise
Trinity and the nature of the never-ending interassociation of the three
beings of infinite perfection.

6. The Stationary Sons of the Trinity

(114.2)10:6.1 All law takes origin in the First Source and Center; he is law.
The administration of spiritual law inheres in the Second Source and
Center. The revelation of law, the promulgation and interpretation of
the divine statutes, is the function of the Third Source and Center. The
application of law, justice, falls within the province of the Paradise
Trinity and is carried out by certain Sons of the Trinity.(114.3)10:6.2Justice
is inherent in the universal sovereignty of the Paradise Trinity, but
goodness, mercy, and truth are the universe ministry of the divine
personalities, whose Deity union constitutes the Trinity. Justice is not
the attitude of the Father, the Son, or the Spirit. Justice is the
Trinity attitude of these personalities of love, mercy, and ministry. No
one of the Paradise Deities fosters the administration of justice.
Justice is never a personal attitude; it is always a plural function.(114.4)10:6.3Evidence,
the basis of fairness (justice in harmony with mercy), is supplied by
the personalities of the Third Source and Center, the conjoint
representative of the Father and the Son to all realms and to the minds
of the intelligent beings of all creation.(114.5)10:6.4Judgment,
the final application of justice in accordance with the evidence
submitted by the personalities of the Infinite Spirit, is the work of
the Stationary Sons of the Trinity, beings partaking of the Trinity
nature of the united Father, Son, and Spirit.(114.6)10:6.5 This group of Trinity Sons embraces the following personalities:

(114.17)10:6.16 We are
the children of the three Paradise Deities functioning as the Trinity,
for I chance to belong to the tenth order of this group, the Universal
Censors. These orders are not representative of the attitude of the
Trinity in a universal sense; they represent this collective attitude of
Deity only in the domains of executive judgment — justice. They were
specifically designed by the Trinity for the precise work to which they
are assigned, and they represent the Trinity only in those functions for
which they were personalized.(115.1)10:6.17 The
Ancients of Days and their Trinity-origin associates mete out the just
judgment of supreme fairness to the seven superuniverses. In the central
universe such functions exist in theory only; there fairness is
self-evident in perfection, and Havona perfection precludes all
possibility of disharmony.(115.2)10:6.18 Justice
is the collective thought of righteousness; mercy is its personal
expression. Mercy is the attitude of love; precision characterizes the
operation of law; divine judgment is the soul of fairness, ever
conforming to the justice of the Trinity, ever fulfilling the divine
love of God. When fully perceived and completely understood, the
righteous justice of the Trinity and the merciful love of the Universal
Father are coincident. But man has no such full understanding of divine
justice. Thus in the Trinity, as man would view it, the personalities of
Father, Son, and Spirit are adjusted to co-ordinate ministry of love
and law in the experiential universes of time.

7. The Overcontrol of Supremacy

(115.3)10:7.1 The First,
Second, and Third Persons of Deity are equal to each other, and they are
one. “The Lord our God is one God.” There is perfection of purpose and
oneness of execution in the divine Trinity of eternal Deities. The
Father, the Son, and the Conjoint Actor are truly and divinely one. Of a
truth it is written: “I am the first, and I am the last, and beside me
there is no God.”(115.4)10:7.2 As things
appear to the mortal on the finite level, the Paradise Trinity, like the
Supreme Being, is concerned only with the total — total planet, total
universe, total superuniverse, total grand universe. This totality
attitude exists because the Trinity is the total of Deity and for many
other reasons.(115.5)10:7.3 The Supreme
Being is something less and something other than the Trinity
functioning in the finite universes; but within certain limits and
during the present era of incomplete power-personalization, this
evolutionary Deity does appear to reflect the attitude of the Trinity of
Supremacy. The Father, Son, and Spirit do not personally function with
the Supreme Being, but during the present universe age they collaborate
with him as the Trinity. We understand that they sustain a similar
relationship to the Ultimate. We often conjecture as to what will be the
personal relationship between the Paradise Deities and God the Supreme
when he has finally evolved, but we do not really know.(115.6)10:7.4 We do not
find the overcontrol of Supremacy to be wholly predictable. Furthermore,
this unpredictability appears to be characterized by a certain
developmental incompleteness, undoubtedly an earmark of the
incompleteness of the Supreme and of the incompleteness of finite
reaction to the Paradise Trinity.(115.7)10:7.5 The mortal
mind can immediately think of a thousand and one things — catastrophic
physical events, appalling accidents, horrific disasters, painful
illnesses, and world-wide scourges — and ask whether such visitations
are correlated in the unknown maneuvering of this probable functioning
of the Supreme Being. Frankly, we do not know; we are not really sure.
But we do observe that, as time passes, all these difficult and more or
less mysterious situations always work out for the welfare and
progress of the universes. It may be that the circumstances of existence
and the inexplicable vicissitudes of living are all interwoven into a
meaningful pattern of high value by the function of the Supreme and the
overcontrol of the Trinity.(116.1)10:7.6 As a son of
God you can discern the personal attitude of love in all the acts of
God the Father. But you will not always be able to understand how many
of the universe acts of the Paradise Trinity redound to the good of the
individual mortal on the evolutionary worlds of space. In the progress
of eternity the acts of the Trinity will be revealed as altogether
meaningful and considerate, but they do not always so appear to the
creatures of time.

8. The Trinity Beyond the Finite

(116.2)10:8.1 Many truths
and facts pertaining to the Paradise Trinity can only be even partially
comprehended by recognizing a function that transcends the finite.(116.3)10:8.2 It would be
inadvisable to discuss the functions of the Trinity of Ultimacy, but it
may be disclosed that God the Ultimate is the Trinity manifestation
comprehended by the Transcendentalers. We are inclined to the belief
that the unification of the master universe is the eventuating act of
the Ultimate and is probably reflective of certain, but not all, phases
of the absonite overcontrol of the Paradise Trinity. The Ultimate is a
qualified manifestation of the Trinity in relation to the absonite only
in the sense that the Supreme thus partially represents the Trinity in
relation to the finite.(116.4)10:8.3 The
Universal Father, the Eternal Son, and the Infinite Spirit are, in a
certain sense, the constituent personalities of total Deity. Their union
in the Paradise Trinity and the absolute function of the Trinity
equivalate to the function of total Deity. And such completion of Deity
transcends both the finite and the absonite.(116.5)10:8.4 While no
single person of the Paradise Deities actually fills all Deity
potential, collectively all three do. Three infinite persons seem to be
the minimum number of beings required to activate the prepersonal and
existential potential of total Deity — the Deity Absolute.(116.6)10:8.5 We know the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, and the Infinite Spirit as persons, but I do not personally know the Deity Absolute. I love and worship God the Father; I respect and honor the Deity Absolute.(116.7)10:8.6 I once
sojourned in a universe where a certain group of beings taught that the
finaliters, in eternity, were eventually to become the children of the
Deity Absolute. But I am unwilling to accept this solution of the
mystery which enshrouds the future of the finaliters.(116.8)10:8.7 The Corps
of the Finality embrace, among others, those mortals of time and space
who have attained perfection in all that pertains to the will of God. As
creatures and within the limits of creature capacity they fully and
truly know God. Having thus found God as the Father of all creatures,
these finaliters must sometime begin the quest for the superfinite
Father. But this quest involves a grasp of the absonite nature of the
ultimate attributes and character of the Paradise Father. Eternity will
disclose whether such an attainment is possible, but we are convinced,
even if the finaliters do grasp this ultimate of divinity, they will
probably be unable to attain the superultimate levels of absolute Deity.(116.9)10:8.8 It may be
possible that the finaliters will partially attain the Deity Absolute,
but even if they should, still in the eternity of eternities the problem
of the Universal Absolute will continue to intrigue, mystify, baffle,
and challenge the ascending and progressing finaliters, for we perceive
that the unfathomability of the cosmic relationships of the Universal
Absolute will tend to grow in proportions as the material universes and
their spiritual administration continue to expand.(117.1)10:8.9 Only infinity can disclose the Father-Infinite.(117.2)10:8.10 [Sponsored by a Universal Censor acting by authority from the Ancients of Days resident on Uversa.]

The Urantia Book

Paper 11

The Eternal Isle of Paradise

(118.1)11:0.1 PARADISE is
the eternal center of the universe of universes and the abiding place
of the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, the Infinite Spirit, and their
divine co-ordinates and associates. This central Isle is the most
gigantic organized body of cosmic reality in all the master universe.
Paradise is a material sphere as well as a spiritual abode. All of the
intelligent creation of the Universal Father is domiciled on material
abodes; hence must the absolute controlling center also be material,
literal. And again it should be reiterated that spirit things and
spiritual beings are real.(118.2)11:0.2 The
material beauty of Paradise consists in the magnificence of its physical
perfection; the grandeur of the Isle of God is exhibited in the superb
intellectual accomplishments and mind development of its inhabitants;
the glory of the central Isle is shown forth in the infinite endowment
of divine spirit personality — the light of life. But the depths of the
spiritual beauty and the wonders of this magnificent ensemble are
utterly beyond the comprehension of the finite mind of material
creatures. The glory and spiritual splendor of the divine abode are
impossible of mortal comprehension. And Paradise is from eternity; there
are neither records nor traditions respecting the origin of this
nuclear Isle of Light and Life.

1. The Divine Residence

(118.3)11:1.1 Paradise
serves many purposes in the administration of the universal realms, but
to creature beings it exists primarily as the dwelling place of Deity.
The personal presence of the Universal Father is resident at the very
center of the upper surface of this well-nigh circular, but not
spherical, abode of the Deities. This Paradise presence of the Universal
Father is immediately surrounded by the personal presence of the
Eternal Son, while they are both invested by the unspeakable glory of
the Infinite Spirit.(118.4)11:1.2 God dwells,
has dwelt, and everlastingly will dwell in this same central and
eternal abode. We have always found him there and always will. The
Universal Father is cosmically focalized, spiritually personalized, and
geographically resident at this center of the universe of universes.(118.5)11:1.3 We all know
the direct course to pursue to find the Universal Father. You are not
able to comprehend much about the divine residence because of its
remoteness from you and the immensity of the intervening space, but
those who are able to comprehend the meaning of these enormous distances
know God’s location and residence just as certainly and literally as
you know the location of New York, London, Rome, or Singapore, cities
definitely and geographically located on Urantia. If you were an
intelligent navigator, equipped with ship, maps, and compass, you could
readily find these cities. Likewise, if you had the time and means of
passage, were spiritually qualified, and had the necessary guidance, you
could be piloted through universe upon universe and from circuit to
circuit, ever journeying inward through the starry realms, until at last
you would stand before the central shining of the spiritual glory of
the Universal Father. Provided with all the necessities for the journey,
it is just as possible to find the personal presence of God at the
center of all things as to find distant cities on your own planet. That
you have not visited these places in no way disproves their reality or
actual existence. That so few of the universe creatures have found God
on Paradise in no way disproves either the reality of his existence or
the actuality of his spiritual person at the center of all things.(119.1)11:1.4 The Father
is always to be found at this central location. Did he move, universal
pandemonium would be precipitated, for there converge in him at this
residential center the universal lines of gravity from the ends of
creation. Whether we trace the personality circuit back through the
universes or follow the ascending personalities as they journey inward
to the Father; whether we trace the lines of material gravity to nether
Paradise or follow the insurging cycles of cosmic force; whether we
trace the lines of spiritual gravity to the Eternal Son or follow the
inward processional of the Paradise Sons of God; whether we trace out
the mind circuits or follow the trillions upon trillions of celestial
beings who spring from the Infinite Spirit — by any of these
observations or by all of them we are led directly back to the Father’s
presence, to his central abode. Here is God personally, literally, and
actually present. And from his infinite being there flow the
flood-streams of life, energy, and personality to all universes.

2. Nature of the Eternal Isle

(119.2)11:2.1 Since you
are beginning to glimpse the enormousness of the material universe
discernible even from your astronomical location, your space position in
the starry systems, it should become evident to you that such a
tremendous material universe must have an adequate and worthy capital, a
headquarters commensurate with the dignity and infinitude of the
universal Ruler of all this vast and far-flung creation of material
realms and living beings.(119.3)11:2.2 In form
Paradise differs from the inhabited space bodies: it is not spherical.
It is definitely ellipsoid, being one-sixth longer in the north-south
diameter than in the east-west diameter. The central Isle is essentially
flat, and the distance from the upper surface to the nether surface is
one tenth that of the east-west diameter.(119.4)11:2.3 These
differences in dimensions, taken in connection with its stationary
status and the greater out-pressure of force-energy at the north end of
the Isle, make it possible to establish absolute direction in the master
universe.(119.5)11:2.4 The central Isle is geographically divided into three domains of activity:

(119.9)11:2.8 We speak of
that surface of Paradise which is occupied with personality activities
as the upper side, and the opposite surface as the nether side. The
periphery of Paradise provides for activities that are not strictly
personal or nonpersonal. The Trinity seems to dominate the personal or
upper plane, the Unqualified Absolute the nether or impersonal plane. We
hardly conceive of the Unqualified Absolute as a person, but we do
think of the functional space presence of this Absolute as focalized on
nether Paradise.(120.1)11:2.9 The eternal
Isle is composed of a single form of materialization — stationary
systems of reality. This literal substance of Paradise is a homogeneous
organization of space potency not to be found elsewhere in all the wide
universe of universes. It has received many names in different
universes, and the Melchizedeks of Nebadon long since named it absolutum.
This Paradise source material is neither dead nor alive; it is the
original nonspiritual expression of the First Source and Center; it is Paradise, and Paradise is without duplicate.(120.2)11:2.10 It
appears to us that the First Source and Center has concentrated all
absolute potential for cosmic reality in Paradise as a part of his
technique of self-liberation from infinity limitations, as a means of
making possible subinfinite, even time-space, creation. But it does not
follow that Paradise is time-space limited just because the universe of
universes discloses these qualities. Paradise exists without time and
has no location in space.(120.3)11:2.11 Roughly:
space seemingly originates just below nether Paradise; time just above
upper Paradise. Time, as you understand it, is not a feature of Paradise
existence, though the citizens of the central Isle are fully conscious
of nontime sequence of events. Motion is not inherent on Paradise; it is
volitional. But the concept of distance, even absolute distance, has
very much meaning as it may be applied to relative locations on
Paradise. Paradise is nonspatial; hence its areas are absolute and
therefore serviceable in many ways beyond the concept of mortal mind.

3. Upper Paradise

(120.4)11:3.1 On upper Paradise there are three grand spheres of activity, the Deity presence, the Most Holy Sphere, and the Holy Area.
The vast region immediately surrounding the presence of the Deities is
set aside as the Most Holy Sphere and is reserved for the functions of
worship, trinitization, and high spiritual attainment. There are no
material structures nor purely intellectual creations in this zone; they
could not exist there. It is useless for me to undertake to portray to
the human mind the divine nature and the beauteous grandeur of the Most
Holy Sphere of Paradise. This realm is wholly spiritual, and you are
almost wholly material. A purely spiritual reality is, to a purely
material being, apparently nonexistent.(120.5)11:3.2 While there
are no physical materializations in the area of the Most Holy, there
are abundant souvenirs of your material days in the Holy Land sectors
and still more in the reminiscent historic areas of peripheral Paradise.(120.6)11:3.3 The Holy
Area, the outlying or residential region, is divided into seven
concentric zones. Paradise is sometimes called “the Father’s House”
since it is his eternal residence, and these seven zones are often
designated “the Father’s Paradise mansions.” The inner or first zone is
occupied by Paradise Citizens and the natives of Havona who may chance
to be dwelling on Paradise. The next or second zone is the residential
area of the natives of the seven superuniverses of time and space. This
second zone is in part subdivided into seven immense divisions, the
Paradise home of the spirit beings and ascendant creatures who hail from
the universes of evolutionary progression. Each of these sectors is
exclusively dedicated to the welfare and advancement of the
personalities of a single superuniverse, but these facilities are almost
infinitely beyond the requirements of the present seven superuniverses.(121.1)11:3.4 Each of the
seven sectors of Paradise is subdivided into residential units suitable
for the lodgment headquarters of one billion glorified individual
working groups. One thousand of these units constitute a division. One
hundred thousand divisions equal one congregation. Ten million
congregations constitute an assembly. One billion assemblies make one
grand unit. And this ascending series continues through the second grand
unit, the third, and so on to the seventh grand unit. And seven of the
grand units make up the master units, and seven of the master units
constitute a superior unit; and thus by sevens the ascending series
expands through the superior, supersuperior, celestial, supercelestial,
to the supreme units. But even this does not utilize all the space
available. This staggering number of residential designations on
Paradise, a number beyond your concept, occupies considerably less than
one per cent of the assigned area of the Holy Land. There is still
plenty of room for those who are on their way inward, even for those who
shall not start the Paradise climb until the times of the eternal
future.

4. Peripheral Paradise

(121.2)11:4.1 The central
Isle ends abruptly at the periphery, but its size is so enormous that
this terminal angle is relatively indiscernible within any circumscribed
area. The peripheral surface of Paradise is occupied, in part, by the
landing and dispatching fields for various groups of spirit
personalities. Since the nonpervaded-space zones nearly impinge upon the
periphery, all personality transports destined to Paradise land in
these regions. Neither upper nor nether Paradise is approachable by
transport supernaphim or other types of space traversers.(121.3)11:4.2 The Seven
Master Spirits have their personal seats of power and authority on the
seven spheres of the Spirit, which circle about Paradise in the space
between the shining orbs of the Son and the inner circuit of the Havona
worlds, but they maintain force-focal headquarters on the Paradise
periphery. Here the slowly circulating presences of the Seven Supreme
Power Directors indicate the location of the seven flash stations for
certain Paradise energies going forth to the seven superuniverses.(121.4)11:4.3 Here on
peripheral Paradise are the enormous historic and prophetic exhibit
areas assigned to the Creator Sons, dedicated to the local universes of
time and space. There are just seven trillion of these historic
reservations now set up or in reserve, but these arrangements all
together occupy only about four per cent of that portion of the
peripheral area thus assigned. We infer that these vast reserves belong
to creations sometime to be situated beyond the borders of the present
known and inhabited seven superuniverses.(121.5)11:4.4 That
portion of Paradise which has been designated for the use of the
existing universes is occupied only from one to four per cent, while the
area assigned to these activities is at least one million times that
actually required for such purposes. Paradise is large enough to
accommodate the activities of an almost infinite creation.(121.6)11:4.5 But a
further attempt to visualize to you the glories of Paradise would be
futile. You must wait, and ascend while you wait, for truly, “Eye has
not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the mind of mortal
man, the things which the Universal Father has prepared for those who
survive the life in the flesh on the worlds of time and space.”

5. Nether Paradise

(122.1)11:5.1 Concerning
nether Paradise, we know only that which is revealed; personalities do
not sojourn there. It has nothing whatever to do with the affairs of
spirit intelligences, nor does the Deity Absolute there function. We are
informed that all physical-energy and cosmic-force circuits have their
origin on nether Paradise, and that it is constituted as follows:

(122.2)11:5.2 1. Directly
underneath the location of the Trinity, in the central portion of
nether Paradise, is the unknown and unrevealed Zone of Infinity.(122.3)11:5.3 2. This Zone is immediately surrounded by an unnamed area.(122.4)11:5.4 3.
Occupying the outer margins of the under surface is a region having
mainly to do with space potency and force-energy. The activities of this
vast elliptical force center are not identifiable with the known
functions of any triunity, but the primordial force-charge of space
appears to be focalized in this area. This center consists of three
concentric elliptical zones: The innermost is the focal point of the
force-energy activities of Paradise itself; the outermost may possibly
be identified with the functions of the Unqualified Absolute, but we are
not certain concerning the space functions of the mid-zone.

(122.5)11:5.5The inner zone
of this force center seems to act as a gigantic heart whose pulsations
direct currents to the outermost borders of physical space. It directs
and modifies force-energies but hardly drives them. The reality
pressure-presence of this primal force is definitely greater at the
north end of the Paradise center than in the southern regions; this is a
uniformly registered difference. The mother force of space seems to
flow in at the south and out at the north through the operation of some
unknown circulatory system which is concerned with the diffusion of this
basic form of force-energy. From time to time there are also noted
differences in the east-west pressures. The forces emanating from this
zone are not responsive to observable physical gravity but are always
obedient to Paradise gravity.(122.6)11:5.6The mid-zone
of the force center immediately surrounds this area. This mid-zone
appears to be static except that it expands and contracts through three
cycles of activity. The least of these pulsations is in an east-west
direction, the next in a north-south direction, while the greatest
fluctuation is in every direction, a generalized expansion and
contraction. The function of this mid-area has never been really
identified, but it must have something to do with reciprocal adjustment
between the inner and the outer zones of the force center. It is
believed by many that the mid-zone is the control mechanism of the
midspace or quiet zones which separate the successive space levels of
the master universe, but no evidence or revelation confirms this. This
inference is derived from the knowledge that this mid-area is in some
manner related to the functioning of the nonpervaded-space mechanism of
the master universe.(122.7)11:5.7The outer zone
is the largest and most active of the three concentric and elliptical
belts of unidentified space potential. This area is the site of
unimagined activities, the central circuit point of emanations which
proceed spaceward in every direction to the outermost borders of the
seven superuniverses and on beyond to overspread the enormous and
incomprehensible domains of all outer space. This space presence is
entirely impersonal notwithstanding that in some undisclosed manner it
seems to be indirectly responsive to the will and mandates of the
infinite Deities when acting as the Trinity. This is believed to be the
central focalization, the Paradise center, of the space presence of the
Unqualified Absolute.(123.1)11:5.8 All forms
of force and all phases of energy seem to be encircuited; they circulate
throughout the universes and return by definite routes. But with the
emanations of the activated zone of the Unqualified Absolute there
appears to be either an outgoing or an incoming — never both
simultaneously. This outer zone pulsates in agelong cycles of gigantic
proportions. For a little more than one billion Urantia years the
space-force of this center is outgoing; then for a similar length of
time it will be incoming. And the space-force manifestations of this
center are universal; they extend throughout all pervadable space.(123.2)11:5.9 All
physical force, energy, and matter are one. All force-energy originally
proceeded from nether Paradise and will eventually return thereto
following the completion of its space circuit. But the energies and
material organizations of the universe of universes did not all come
from nether Paradise in their present phenomenal states; space is the
womb of several forms of matter and prematter. Though the outer zone of
the Paradise force center is the source of space-energies, space does
not originate there. Space is not force, energy, or power. Nor do the
pulsations of this zone account for the respiration of space, but the
incoming and outgoing phases of this zone are synchronized with the
two-billion-year expansion-contraction cycles of space.

6. Space Respiration

(123.3)11:6.1 We do not
know the actual mechanism of space respiration; we merely observe that
all space alternately contracts and expands. This respiration affects
both the horizontal extension of pervaded space and the vertical
extensions of unpervaded space which exist in the vast space reservoirs
above and below Paradise. In attempting to imagine the volume outlines
of these space reservoirs, you might think of an hourglass.(123.4)11:6.2 As the
universes of the horizontal extension of pervaded space expand, the
reservoirs of the vertical extension of unpervaded space contract and
vice versa. There is a confluence of pervaded and unpervaded space just
underneath nether Paradise. Both types of space there flow through the
transmuting regulation channels, where changes are wrought making
pervadable space nonpervadable and vice versa in the contraction and
expansion cycles of the cosmos.(123.5)11:6.3
“Unpervaded” space means: unpervaded by those forces, energies, powers,
and presences known to exist in pervaded space. We do not know whether
vertical (reservoir) space is destined always to function as the
equipoise of horizontal (universe) space; we do not know whether there
is a creative intent concerning unpervaded space; we really know very
little about the space reservoirs, merely that they exist, and that they
seem to counterbalance the space-expansion-contraction cycles of the
universe of universes.(123.6)11:6.4 The cycles
of space respiration extend in each phase for a little more than one
billion Urantia years. During one phase the universes expand; during the
next they contract. Pervaded space is now approaching the mid-point of
the expanding phase, while unpervaded space nears the mid-point of the
contracting phase, and we are informed that the outermost limits of both
space extensions are, theoretically, now approximately equidistant from
Paradise. The unpervaded-space reservoirs now extend vertically above
upper Paradise and below nether Paradise just as far as the pervaded
space of the universe extends horizontally outward from peripheral
Paradise to and even beyond the fourth outer space level.(124.1)11:6.5 For a
billion years of Urantia time the space reservoirs contract while the
master universe and the force activities of all horizontal space expand.
It thus requires a little over two billion Urantia years to complete
the entire expansion-contraction cycle.

7. Space Functions of Paradise

(124.2)11:7.1 Space does
not exist on any of the surfaces of Paradise. If one “looked” directly
up from the upper surface of Paradise, one would “see” nothing but
unpervaded space going out or coming in, just now coming in. Space does
not touch Paradise; only the quiescent midspace zones come in contact with the central Isle.(124.3)11:7.2 Paradise is
the actually motionless nucleus of the relatively quiescent zones
existing between pervaded and unpervaded space. Geographically these
zones appear to be a relative extension of Paradise, but there probably
is some motion in them. We know very little about them, but we observe
that these zones of lessened space motion separate pervaded and
unpervaded space. Similar zones once existed between the levels of
pervaded space, but these are now less quiescent.(124.4)11:7.3 The
vertical cross section of total space would slightly resemble a Maltese
cross, with the horizontal arms representing pervaded (universe) space
and the vertical arms representing unpervaded (reservoir) space. The
areas between the four arms would separate them somewhat as the midspace
zones separate pervaded and unpervaded space. These quiescent midspace
zones grow larger and larger at greater and greater distances from
Paradise and eventually encompass the borders of all space and
completely incapsulate both the space reservoirs and the entire
horizontal extension of pervaded space.(124.5)11:7.4 Space is
neither a subabsolute condition within, nor the presence of, the
Unqualified Absolute, neither is it a function of the Ultimate. It is a
bestowal of Paradise, and the space of the grand universe and that of
all outer regions is believed to be actually pervaded by the ancestral
space potency of the Unqualified Absolute. From near approach to
peripheral Paradise, this pervaded space extends horizontally outward
through the fourth space level and beyond the periphery of the master
universe, but how far beyond we do not know.(124.6)11:7.5 If you
imagine a finite, but inconceivably large, V-shaped plane situated at
right angles to both the upper and lower surfaces of Paradise, with its
point nearly tangent to peripheral Paradise, and then visualize this
plane in elliptical revolution about Paradise, its revolution would
roughly outline the volume of pervaded space.(124.7)11:7.6 There is an
upper and a lower limit to horizontal space with reference to any given
location in the universes. If one could move far enough at right angles
to the plane of Orvonton, either up or down, eventually the upper or
lower limit of pervaded space would be encountered. Within the known
dimensions of the master universe these limits draw farther and farther
apart at greater and greater distances from Paradise; space thickens,
and it thickens somewhat faster than does the plane of creation, the
universes.(125.1)11:7.7 The relatively quiet zones
between the space levels, such as the one separating the seven
superuniverses from the first outer space level, are enormous elliptical
regions of quiescent space activities. These zones separate the vast
galaxies which race around Paradise in orderly procession. You may
visualize the first outer space level, where untold universes are now in
process of formation, as a vast procession of galaxies swinging around
Paradise, bounded above and below by the midspace zones of quiescence
and bounded on the inner and outer margins by relatively quiet space
zones.*(125.2)11:7.8 A space
level thus functions as an elliptical region of motion surrounded on all
sides by relative motionlessness. Such relationships of motion and
quiescence constitute a curved space path of lessened resistance to
motion which is universally followed by cosmic force and emergent energy
as they circle forever around the Isle of Paradise.(125.3)11:7.9 This
alternate zoning of the master universe, in association with the
alternate clockwise and counterclockwise flow of the galaxies, is a
factor in the stabilization of physical gravity designed to prevent the
accentuation of gravity pressure to the point of disruptive and
dispersive activities. Such an arrangement exerts antigravity influence
and acts as a brake upon otherwise dangerous velocities.

8. Paradise Gravity

(125.4)11:8.1 The
inescapable pull of gravity effectively grips all the worlds of all the
universes of all space. Gravity is the all-powerful grasp of the
physical presence of Paradise. Gravity is the omnipotent strand on which
are strung the gleaming stars, blazing suns, and whirling spheres which
constitute the universal physical adornment of the eternal God, who is
all things, fills all things, and in whom all things consist.(125.5)11:8.2 The center
and focal point of absolute material gravity is the Isle of Paradise,
complemented by the dark gravity bodies encircling Havona and
equilibrated by the upper and nether space reservoirs. All known
emanations of nether Paradise invariably and unerringly respond to the
central gravity pull operating upon the endless circuits of the
elliptical space levels of the master universe. Every known form of
cosmic reality has the bend of the ages, the trend of the circle, the
swing of the great ellipse.(125.6)11:8.3 Space is
nonresponsive to gravity, but it acts as an equilibrant on gravity.
Without the space cushion, explosive action would jerk surrounding space
bodies. Pervaded space also exerts an antigravity influence upon
physical or linear gravity; space can actually neutralize such gravity
action even though it cannot delay it. Absolute gravity is Paradise
gravity. Local or linear gravity pertains to the electrical stage of
energy or matter; it operates within the central, super-, and outer
universes, wherever suitable materialization has taken place.(125.7)11:8.4 The
numerous forms of cosmic force, physical energy, universe power, and
various materializations disclose three general, though not perfectly
clear-cut, stages of response to Paradise gravity:

(126.1)11:8.5 1. Pregravity Stages (Force).
This is the first step in the individuation of space potency into the
pre-energy forms of cosmic force. This state is analogous to the concept
of the primordial force-charge of space, sometimes called pure energy or segregata.(126.2)11:8.6 2. Gravity Stages (Energy).
This modification of the force-charge of space is produced by the
action of the Paradise force organizers. It signalizes the appearance of
energy systems responsive to the pull of Paradise gravity. This
emergent energy is originally neutral but consequent upon further
metamorphosis will exhibit the so-called negative and positive
qualities. We designate these stages ultimata.(126.3)11:8.7 3. Postgravity Stages (Universe Power).
In this stage, energy-matter discloses response to the control of
linear gravity. In the central universe these physical systems are
threefold organizations known as triata. They are the
superpower mother systems of the creations of time and space. The
physical systems of the superuniverses are mobilized by the Universe
Power Directors and their associates. These material organizations are
dual in constitution and are known as gravita. The dark gravity
bodies encircling Havona are neither triata nor gravita, and their
drawing power discloses both forms of physical gravity, linear and
absolute.

(126.4)11:8.8 Space
potency is not subject to the interactions of any form of gravitation.
This primal endowment of Paradise is not an actual level of reality, but
it is ancestral to all relative functional nonspirit realities — all
manifestations of force-energy and the organization of power and matter.
Space potency is a term difficult to define. It does not mean that
which is ancestral to space; its meaning should convey the idea of the
potencies and potentials existent within space. It may be roughly
conceived to include all those absolute influences and potentials which
emanate from Paradise and constitute the space presence of the
Unqualified Absolute.(126.5)11:8.9 Paradise is
the absolute source and the eternal focal point of all energy-matter in
the universe of universes. The Unqualified Absolute is the revealer,
regulator, and repository of that which has Paradise as its source and
origin. The universal presence of the Unqualified Absolute seems to be
equivalent to the concept of a potential infinity of gravity extension,
an elastic tension of Paradise presence. This concept aids us in
grasping the fact that everything is drawn inward towards Paradise. The
illustration is crude but nonetheless helpful. It also explains why
gravity always acts preferentially in the plane perpendicular to the
mass, a phenomenon indicative of the differential dimensions of Paradise
and the surrounding creations.

9. The Uniqueness of Paradise

(126.6)11:9.1 Paradise is
unique in that it is the realm of primal origin and the final goal of
destiny for all spirit personalities. Although it is true that not all
of the lower spirit beings of the local universes are immediately
destined to Paradise, Paradise still remains the goal of desire for all
supermaterial personalities.(126.7)11:9.2 Paradise is
the geographic center of infinity; it is not a part of universal
creation, not even a real part of the eternal Havona universe. We
commonly refer to the central Isle as belonging to the divine universe,
but it really does not. Paradise is an eternal and exclusive existence.(127.1)11:9.3 In the
eternity of the past, when the Universal Father gave infinite
personality expression of his spirit self in the being of the Eternal
Son, simultaneously he revealed the infinity potential of his
nonpersonal self as Paradise. Nonpersonal and nonspiritual Paradise
appears to have been the inevitable repercussion to the Father’s will
and act which eternalized the Original Son. Thus did the Father project
reality in two actual phases — the personal and the nonpersonal, the
spiritual and the nonspiritual. The tension between them, in the face of
will to action by the Father and the Son, gave existence to the
Conjoint Actor and the central universe of material worlds and spiritual
beings.(127.2)11:9.4 When
reality is differentiated into the personal and the nonpersonal (Eternal
Son and Paradise), it is hardly proper to call that which is
nonpersonal “Deity” unless somehow qualified. The energy and material
repercussions of the acts of Deity could hardly be called Deity. Deity
may cause much that is not Deity, and Paradise is not Deity; neither is
it conscious as mortal man could ever possibly understand such a term.(127.3)11:9.5 Paradise is not ancestral to any being or living entity; it is not a creator. Personality and mind-spirit relationships are transmissible,
but pattern is not. Patterns are never reflections; they are
duplications — reproductions. Paradise is the absolute of patterns;
Havona is an exhibit of these potentials in actuality.(127.4)11:9.6 God’s
residence is central and eternal, glorious and ideal. His home is the
beauteous pattern for all universe headquarters worlds; and the central
universe of his immediate indwelling is the pattern for all universes in
their ideals, organization, and ultimate destiny.(127.5)11:9.7 Paradise is
the universal headquarters of all personality activities and the
source-center of all force-space and energy manifestations. Everything
which has been, now is, or is yet to be, has come, now comes, or will
come forth from this central abiding place of the eternal Gods. Paradise
is the center of all creation, the source of all energies, and the
place of primal origin of all personalities.(127.6)11:9.8 After all,
to mortals the most important thing about eternal Paradise is the fact
that this perfect abode of the Universal Father is the real and
far-distant destiny of the immortal souls of the mortal and material
sons of God, the ascending creatures of the evolutionary worlds of time
and space. Every God-knowing mortal who has espoused the career of doing
the Father’s will has already embarked upon the long, long Paradise
trail of divinity pursuit and perfection attainment. And when such an
animal-origin being does stand, as countless numbers now do, before the
Gods on Paradise, having ascended from the lowly spheres of space, such
an achievement represents the reality of a spiritual transformation
bordering on the limits of supremacy.(127.7)11:9.9 [Presented by a Perfector of Wisdom commissioned thus to function by the Ancients of Days on Uversa.]

The Urantia Book

Paper 12

The Universe of Universes

(128.1)12:0.1 THE
immensity of the far-flung creation of the Universal Father is utterly
beyond the grasp of finite imagination; the enormousness of the master
universe staggers the concept of even my order of being. But the mortal
mind can be taught much about the plan and arrangement of the universes;
you can know something of their physical organization and marvelous
administration; you may learn much about the various groups of
intelligent beings who inhabit the seven superuniverses of time and the
central universe of eternity.(128.2)12:0.2 In
principle, that is, in eternal potential, we conceive of material
creation as being infinite because the Universal Father is actually
infinite, but as we study and observe the total material creation, we
know that at any given moment in time it is limited, although to your
finite minds it is comparatively limitless, virtually boundless.(128.3)12:0.3 We are
convinced, from the study of physical law and from the observation of
the starry realms, that the infinite Creator is not yet manifest in
finality of cosmic expression, that much of the cosmic potential of the
Infinite is still self-contained and unrevealed. To created beings the
master universe might appear to be almost infinite, but it is far from
finished; there are still physical limits to the material creation, and
the experiential revelation of the eternal purpose is still in progress.

1. Space Levels of the Master Universe

(128.4)12:1.1 The
universe of universes is not an infinite plane, a boundless cube, nor a
limitless circle; it certainly has dimensions. The laws of physical
organization and administration prove conclusively that the whole vast
aggregation of force-energy and matter-power functions ultimately as a
space unit, as an organized and co-ordinated whole. The observable
behavior of the material creation constitutes evidence of a physical
universe of definite limits. The final proof of both a circular and
delimited universe is afforded by the, to us, well-known fact that all
forms of basic energy ever swing around the curved path of the space
levels of the master universe in obedience to the incessant and absolute
pull of Paradise gravity.(128.5)12:1.2 The
successive space levels of the master universe constitute the major
divisions of pervaded space — total creation, organized and partially
inhabited or yet to be organized and inhabited. If the master universe
were not a series of elliptical space levels of lessened resistance to
motion, alternating with zones of relative quiescence, we conceive that
some of the cosmic energies would be observed to shoot off on an
infinite range, off on a straight-line path into trackless space; but we
never find force, energy, or matter thus behaving; ever they whirl,
always swinging onward in the tracks of the great space circuits.(129.1)12:1.3 Proceeding
outward from Paradise through the horizontal extension of pervaded
space, the master universe is existent in six concentric ellipses, the
space levels encircling the central Isle:

(129.8)12:1.10Havona,
the central universe, is not a time creation; it is an eternal
existence. This never-beginning, never-ending universe consists of one
billion spheres of sublime perfection and is surrounded by the enormous
dark gravity bodies. At the center of Havona is the stationary and
absolutely stabilized Isle of Paradise, surrounded by its twenty-one
satellites. Owing to the enormous encircling masses of the dark gravity
bodies about the fringe of the central universe, the mass content of
this central creation is far in excess of the total known mass of all
seven sectors of the grand universe.(129.9)12:1.11The Paradise-Havona System,
the eternal universe encircling the eternal Isle, constitutes the
perfect and eternal nucleus of the master universe; all seven of the
superuniverses and all regions of outer space revolve in established
orbits around the gigantic central aggregation of the Paradise
satellites and the Havona spheres.(129.10)12:1.12The Seven Superuniverses
are not primary physical organizations; nowhere do their boundaries
divide a nebular family, neither do they cross a local universe, a prime
creative unit. Each superuniverse is simply a geographic space
clustering of approximately one seventh of the organized and partially
inhabited post-Havona creation, and each is about equal in the number of
local universes embraced and in the space encompassed. Nebadon, your local universe, is one of the newer creations in Orvonton, the seventh superuniverse.(129.11)12:1.13The Grand Universe
is the present organized and inhabited creation. It consists of the
seven superuniverses, with an aggregate evolutionary potential of around
seven trillion inhabited planets, not to mention the eternal spheres of
the central creation. But this tentative estimate takes no account of
architectural administrative spheres, neither does it include the
outlying groups of unorganized universes. The present ragged edge of the
grand universe, its uneven and unfinished periphery, together with the
tremendously unsettled condition of the whole astronomical plot,
suggests to our star students that even the seven superuniverses are, as
yet, uncompleted. As we move from within, from the divine center
outward in any one direction, we do, eventually, come to the outer
limits of the organized and inhabited creation; we come to the outer
limits of the grand universe. And it is near this outer border, in a
far-off corner of such a magnificent creation, that your local universe
has its eventful existence.(129.12)12:1.14The Outer Space Levels.
Far out in space, at an enormous distance from the seven inhabited
superuniverses, there are assembling vast and unbelievably stupendous
circuits of force and materializing energies. Between the energy
circuits of the seven superuniverses and this gigantic outer belt of
force activity, there is a space zone of comparative quiet, which varies
in width but averages about four hundred thousand light-years. These
space zones are free from star dust — cosmic fog. Our students of these
phenomena are in doubt as to the exact status of the space-forces
existing in this zone of relative quiet which encircles the seven
superuniverses. But about one-half million light-years beyond the
periphery of the present grand universe we observe the beginnings of a
zone of an unbelievable energy action which increases in volume and
intensity for over twenty-five million light-years. These tremendous
wheels of energizing forces are situated in the first outer space level,
a continuous belt of cosmic activity encircling the whole of the known,
organized, and inhabited creation.(130.1)12:1.15 Still
greater activities are taking place beyond these regions, for the Uversa
physicists have detected early evidence of force manifestations more
than fifty million light-years beyond the outermost ranges of the
phenomena in the first outer space level. These activities undoubtedly
presage the organization of the material creations of the second outer
space level of the master universe.(130.2)12:1.16 The
central universe is the creation of eternity; the seven superuniverses
are the creations of time; the four outer space levels are undoubtedly
destined to eventuate-evolve the ultimacy of creation. And there are
those who maintain that the Infinite can never attain full expression
short of infinity; and therefore do they postulate an additional and
unrevealed creation beyond the fourth and outermost space level, a
possible ever-expanding, never-ending universe of infinity. In theory we
do not know how to limit either the infinity of the Creator or the
potential infinity of creation, but as it exists and is administered, we
regard the master universe as having limitations, as being definitely
delimited and bounded on its outer margins by open space.

2. The Domains of the Unqualified Absolute

(130.3)12:2.1 When
Urantia astronomers peer through their increasingly powerful telescopes
into the mysterious stretches of outer space and there behold the
amazing evolution of almost countless physical universes, they should
realize that they are gazing upon the mighty outworking of the
unsearchable plans of the Architects of the Master Universe. True, we do
possess evidences which are suggestive of the presence of certain
Paradise personality influences here and there throughout the vast
energy manifestations now characteristic of these outer regions, but
from the larger viewpoint the space regions extending beyond the outer
borders of the seven superuniverses are generally recognized as
constituting the domains of the Unqualified Absolute.(130.4)12:2.2 Although
the unaided human eye can see only two or three nebulae outside the
borders of the superuniverse of Orvonton, your telescopes literally
reveal millions upon millions of these physical universes in process of
formation. Most of the starry realms visually exposed to the search of
your present-day telescopes are in Orvonton, but with photographic
technique the larger telescopes penetrate far beyond the borders of the
grand universe into the domains of outer space, where untold universes
are in process of organization. And there are yet other millions of
universes beyond the range of your present instruments.(130.5)12:2.3 In the
not-distant future, new telescopes will reveal to the wondering gaze of
Urantian astronomers no less than 375 million new galaxies in the remote
stretches of outer space. At the same time these more powerful
telescopes will disclose that many island universes formerly believed to
be in outer space are really a part of the galactic system of Orvonton.
The seven superuniverses are still growing; the periphery of each is
gradually expanding; new nebulae are constantly being stabilized and
organized; and some of the nebulae which Urantian astronomers regard as
extragalactic are actually on the fringe of Orvonton and are traveling
along with us.(131.1)12:2.4 The Uversa
star students observe that the grand universe is surrounded by the
ancestors of a series of starry and planetary clusters which completely
encircle the present inhabited creation as concentric rings of outer
universes upon universes. The physicists of Uversa calculate that the
energy and matter of these outer and uncharted regions already equal
many times the total material mass and energy charge embraced in all
seven superuniverses. We are informed that the metamorphosis of cosmic
force in these outer space levels is a function of the Paradise force
organizers. We also know that these forces are ancestral to those
physical energies which at present activate the grand universe. The
Orvonton power directors, however, have nothing to do with these
far-distant realms, neither are the energy movements therein discernibly
connected with the power circuits of the organized and inhabited
creations.(131.2)12:2.5 We know
very little of the significance of these tremendous phenomena of outer
space. A greater creation of the future is in process of formation. We
can observe its immensity, we can discern its extent and sense its
majestic dimensions, but otherwise we know little more about these
realms than do the astronomers of Urantia. As far as we know, no
material beings on the order of humans, no angels or other spirit
creatures, exist in this outer ring of nebulae, suns, and planets. This
distant domain is beyond the jurisdiction and administration of the
superuniverse governments.(131.3)12:2.6 Throughout
Orvonton it is believed that a new type of creation is in process, an
order of universes destined to become the scene of the future activities
of the assembling Corps of the Finality; and if our conjectures are
correct, then the endless future may hold for all of you the same
enthralling spectacles that the endless past has held for your seniors
and predecessors.

3. Universal Gravity

(131.4)12:3.1 All forms
of force-energy — material, mindal, or spiritual — are alike subject to
those grasps, those universal presences, which we call gravity.
Personality also is responsive to gravity — to the Father’s exclusive
circuit; but though this circuit is exclusive to the Father, he is not
excluded from the other circuits; the Universal Father is infinite and
acts over all four absolute-gravity circuits in the master universe:

(131.5)12:3.2 1. The Personality Gravity of the Universal Father.(131.6)12:3.3 2. The Spirit Gravity of the Eternal Son.(131.7)12:3.4 3. The Mind Gravity of the Conjoint Actor.(131.8)12:3.5 4. The Cosmic Gravity of the Isle of Paradise.

(131.9)12:3.6 These four
circuits are not related to the nether Paradise force center; they are
neither force, energy, nor power circuits. They are absolute presence circuits and like God are independent of time and space.(132.1)12:3.7 In this
connection it is interesting to record certain observations made on
Uversa during recent millenniums by the corps of gravity researchers.
This expert group of workers has arrived at the following conclusions
regarding the different gravity systems of the master universe:

(132.2)12:3.8 1. Physical Gravity.
Having formulated an estimate of the summation of the entire
physical-gravity capacity of the grand universe, they have laboriously
effected a comparison of this finding with the estimated total of
absolute gravity presence now operative. These calculations indicate
that the total gravity action on the grand universe is a very small part
of the estimated gravity pull of Paradise, computed on the basis of the
gravity response of basic physical units of universe matter. These
investigators reach the amazing conclusion that the central universe and
the surrounding seven superuniverses are at the present time making use
of only about five per cent of the active functioning of the Paradise
absolute-gravity grasp. In other words: At the present moment about
ninety-five per cent of the active cosmic-gravity action of the Isle of
Paradise, computed on this totality theory, is engaged in controlling
material systems beyond the borders of the present organized universes.
These calculations all refer to absolute gravity; linear gravity is an
interactive phenomenon which can be computed only by knowing the actual
Paradise gravity.(132.3)12:3.9 2. Spiritual Gravity.
By the same technique of comparative estimation and calculation these
researchers have explored the present reaction capacity of spirit
gravity and, with the co-operation of Solitary Messengers and other
spirit personalities, have arrived at the summation of the active spirit
gravity of the Second Source and Center. And it is most instructive to
note that they find about the same value for the actual and functional
presence of spirit gravity in the grand universe that they postulate for
the present total of active spirit gravity. In other words: At the
present time practically the entire spirit gravity of the Eternal Son,
computed on this theory of totality, is observable as functioning in the
grand universe. If these findings are dependable, we may conclude that
the universes now evolving in outer space are at the present time wholly
nonspiritual. And if this is true, it would satisfactorily explain why
spirit-endowed beings are in possession of little or no information
about these vast energy manifestations aside from knowing the fact of
their physical existence.(132.4)12:3.10 3. Mind Gravity.
By these same principles of comparative computation these experts have
attacked the problem of mind-gravity presence and response. The mind
unit of estimation was arrived at by averaging three material and three
spiritual types of mentality, although the type of mind found in the
power directors and their associates proved to be a disturbing factor in
the effort to arrive at a basic unit for mind-gravity estimation. There
was little to impede the estimation of the present capacity of the
Third Source and Center for mind-gravity function in accordance with
this theory of totality. Although the findings in this instance are not
so conclusive as in the estimates of physical and spirit gravity, they
are, comparatively considered, very instructive, even intriguing. These
investigators deduce that about eighty-five per cent of the mind-gravity
response to the intellectual drawing of the Conjoint Actor takes origin
in the existing grand universe. This would suggest the possibility that
mind activities are involved in connection with the observable physical
activities now in progress throughout the realms of outer space. While
this estimate is probably far from accurate, it accords, in principle,
with our belief that intelligent force organizers are at present
directing universe evolution in the space levels beyond the present
outer limits of the grand universe. Whatever the nature of this
postulated intelligence, it is apparently not spirit-gravity responsive.

(133.1)12:3.11 But all
these computations are at best estimates based on assumed laws. We think
they are fairly reliable. Even if a few spirit beings were located in
outer space, their collective presence would not markedly influence
calculations involving such enormous measurements.(133.2)12:3.12Personality Gravity
is noncomputable. We recognize the circuit, but we cannot measure
either qualitative or quantitative realities responsive thereto.

4. Space and Motion

(133.3)12:4.1 All units
of cosmic energy are in primary revolution, are engaged in the execution
of their mission, while swinging around the universal orbit. The
universes of space and their component systems and worlds are all
revolving spheres, moving along the endless circuits of the master
universe space levels. Absolutely nothing is stationary in all the
master universe except the very center of Havona, the eternal Isle of
Paradise, the center of gravity.(133.4)12:4.2 The
Unqualified Absolute is functionally limited to space, but we are not so
sure about the relation of this Absolute to motion. Is motion inherent
therein? We do not know. We know that motion is not inherent in space;
even the motions of space are not innate. But we are not so
sure about the relation of the Unqualified to motion. Who, or what, is
really responsible for the gigantic activities of force-energy
transmutations now in progress out beyond the borders of the present
seven superuniverses? Concerning the origin of motion we have the
following opinions:

(133.5)12:4.3 1. We think the Conjoint Actor initiates motion in space.(133.6)12:4.4 2. If the Conjoint Actor produces the motions of space, we cannot prove it.(133.7)12:4.5 3. The
Universal Absolute does not originate initial motion but does equalize
and control all of the tensions originated by motion.

(133.8)12:4.6 In outer
space the force organizers are apparently responsible for the production
of the gigantic universe wheels which are now in process of stellar
evolution, but their ability so to function must have been made possible
by some modification of the space presence of the Unqualified Absolute.(133.9)12:4.7 Space is,
from the human viewpoint, nothing — negative; it exists only as related
to something positive and nonspatial. Space is, however, real. It
contains and conditions motion. It even moves. Space motions may be
roughly classified as follows:

(133.10)12:4.8 1. Primary motion — space respiration, the motion of space itself.(133.11)12:4.9 2. Secondary motion — the alternate directional swings of the successive space levels.(133.12)12:4.10 3.
Relative motions — relative in the sense that they are not evaluated
with Paradise as a base point. Primary and secondary motions are
absolute, motion in relation to unmoving Paradise.(133.13)12:4.11 4. Compensatory or correlating movement designed to co-ordinate all other motions.

(134.1)12:4.12 The
present relationship of your sun and its associated planets, while
disclosing many relative and absolute motions in space, tends to convey
the impression to astronomic observers that you are comparatively
stationary in space, and that the surrounding starry clusters and
streams are engaged in outward flight at ever-increasing velocities as
your calculations proceed outward in space. But such is not the case.
You fail to recognize the present outward and uniform expansion of the
physical creations of all pervaded space. Your own local creation
(Nebadon) participates in this movement of universal outward expansion.
The entire seven superuniverses participate in the two-billion-year
cycles of space respiration along with the outer regions of the master
universe.(134.2)12:4.13 When the
universes expand and contract, the material masses in pervaded space
alternately move against and with the pull of Paradise gravity. The work
that is done in moving the material energy mass of creation is space work but not power-energy work.(134.3)12:4.14 Although
your spectroscopic estimations of astronomic velocities are fairly
reliable when applied to the starry realms belonging to your
superuniverse and its associate superuniverses, such reckonings with
reference to the realms of outer space are wholly unreliable. Spectral
lines are displaced from the normal towards the violet by an approaching
star; likewise these lines are displaced towards the red by a receding
star. Many influences interpose to make it appear that the recessional
velocity of the external universes increases at the rate of more than
one hundred miles a second for every million light-years increase in
distance. By this method of reckoning, subsequent to the perfection of
more powerful telescopes, it will appear that these far-distant systems
are in flight from this part of the universe at the unbelievable rate of
more than thirty thousand miles a second. But this apparent speed of
recession is not real; it results from numerous factors of error
embracing angles of observation and other time-space distortions.(134.4)12:4.15 But the greatest of all such distortions arises because the vast universes of outer space,
in the realms next to the domains of the seven superuniverses, seem to
be revolving in a direction opposite to that of the grand universe. That
is, these myriads of nebulae and their accompanying suns and spheres
are at the present time revolving clockwise about the central creation.
The seven superuniverses revolve about Paradise in a counterclockwise
direction. It appears that the second outer universe of galaxies, like
the seven superuniverses, revolves counterclockwise about Paradise. And
the astronomic observers of Uversa think they detect evidence of
revolutionary movements in a third outer belt of far-distant space which
are beginning to exhibit directional tendencies of a clockwise nature.*(134.5)12:4.16 It is
probable that these alternate directions of successive space processions
of the universes have something to do with the intramaster universe
gravity technique of the Universal Absolute, which consists of a
co-ordination of forces and an equalization of space tensions. Motion as
well as space is a complement or equilibrant of gravity. *

5. Space and Time

(134.6)12:5.1 Like space,
time is a bestowal of Paradise, but not in the same sense, only
indirectly. Time comes by virtue of motion and because mind is
inherently aware of sequentiality. From a practical viewpoint, motion is
essential to time, but there is no universal time unit based on motion
except in so far as the Paradise-Havona standard day is arbitrarily so
recognized. The totality of space respiration destroys its local value
as a time source.(135.1)12:5.2 Space is
not infinite, even though it takes origin from Paradise; not absolute,
for it is pervaded by the Unqualified Absolute. We do not know the
absolute limits of space, but we do know that the absolute of time is
eternity.(135.2)12:5.3 Time and
space are inseparable only in the time-space creations, the seven
superuniverses. Nontemporal space (space without time) theoretically
exists, but the only truly nontemporal place is Paradise area. Nonspatial time (time without space) exists in mind of the Paradise level of function.(135.3)12:5.4 The
relatively motionless midspace zones impinging on Paradise and
separating pervaded from unpervaded space are the transition zones from
time to eternity, hence the necessity of Paradise pilgrims becoming
unconscious during this transit when it is to culminate in Paradise
citizenship. Time-conscious visitors can go to Paradise without thus sleeping, but they remain creatures of time.(135.4)12:5.5
Relationships to time do not exist without motion in space, but
consciousness of time does. Sequentiality can consciousize time even in
the absence of motion. Man’s mind is less time-bound than space-bound
because of the inherent nature of mind. Even during the days of the
earth life in the flesh, though man’s mind is rigidly space-bound, the
creative human imagination is comparatively time free. But time itself
is not genetically a quality of mind.(135.5)12:5.6 There are three different levels of time cognizance:

(135.6)12:5.7 1. Mind-perceived time — consciousness of sequence, motion, and a sense of duration.(135.7)12:5.8 2.
Spirit-perceived time — insight into motion Godward and the awareness of
the motion of ascent to levels of increasing divinity.(135.8)12:5.9 3. Personality creates a unique time sense out of insight into Reality plus a consciousness of presence and an awareness of duration.

(135.9)12:5.10
Unspiritual animals know only the past and live in the present.
Spirit-indwelt man has powers of prevision (insight); he may visualize
the future. Only forward-looking and progressive attitudes are
personally real. Static ethics and traditional morality are just
slightly superanimal. Nor is stoicism a high order of self-realization.
Ethics and morals become truly human when they are dynamic and
progressive, alive with universe reality.(135.10)12:5.11 The
human personality is not merely a concomitant of time-and-space events;
the human personality can also act as the cosmic cause of such events.

6. Universal Overcontrol

(135.11)12:6.1 The
universe is nonstatic. Stability is not the result of inertia but rather
the product of balanced energies, co-operative minds, co-ordinated
morontias, spirit overcontrol, and personality unification. Stability is
wholly and always proportional to divinity.(135.12)12:6.2 In the
physical control of the master universe the Universal Father exercises
priority and primacy through the Isle of Paradise; God is absolute in
the spiritual administration of the cosmos in the person of the Eternal
Son. Concerning the domains of mind, the Father and the Son function
co-ordinately in the Conjoint Actor.(136.1)12:6.3 The Third
Source and Center assists in the maintenance of the equilibrium and
co-ordination of the combined physical and spiritual energies and
organizations by the absoluteness of his grasp of the cosmic mind and by
the exercise of his inherent and universal physical- and
spiritual-gravity complements. Whenever and wherever there occurs a
liaison between the material and the spiritual, such a mind phenomenon
is an act of the Infinite Spirit. Mind alone can interassociate the
physical forces and energies of the material level with the spiritual
powers and beings of the spirit level.(136.2)12:6.4 In all your
contemplation of universal phenomena, make certain that you take into
consideration the interrelation of physical, intellectual, and spiritual
energies, and that due allowance is made for the unexpected phenomena
attendant upon their unification by personality and for the
unpredictable phenomena resulting from the actions and reactions of
experiential Deity and the Absolutes.(136.3)12:6.5 The
universe is highly predictable only in the quantitative or
gravity-measurement sense; even the primal physical forces are not
responsive to linear gravity, nor are the higher mind meanings and true
spirit values of ultimate universe realities. Qualitatively, the
universe is not highly predictable as regards new associations of
forces, either physical, mindal, or spiritual, although many such
combinations of energies or forces become partially predictable when
subjected to critical observation. When matter, mind, and spirit are
unified by creature personality, we are unable fully to predict the
decisions of such a freewill being.(136.4)12:6.6 All phases
of primordial force, nascent spirit, and other nonpersonal ultimates
appear to react in accordance with certain relatively stable but unknown
laws and are characterized by a latitude of performance and an
elasticity of response which are often disconcerting when encountered in
the phenomena of a circumscribed and isolated situation. What is the
explanation of this unpredictable freedom of reaction disclosed by these
emerging universe actualities? These unknown, unfathomable
unpredictables — whether pertaining to the behavior of a primordial unit
of force, the reaction of an unidentified level of mind, or the
phenomenon of a vast preuniverse in the making in the domains of outer
space — probably disclose the activities of the Ultimate and the
presence-performances of the Absolutes, which antedate the function of
all universe Creators.(136.5)12:6.7 We do not
really know, but we surmise that such amazing versatility and such
profound co-ordination signify the presence and performance of the
Absolutes, and that such diversity of response in the face of apparently
uniform causation discloses the reaction of the Absolutes, not only to
the immediate and situational causation, but also to all other related
causations throughout the entire master universe.(136.6)12:6.8 Individuals
have their guardians of destiny; planets, systems, constellations,
universes, and superuniverses each have their respective rulers who
labor for the good of their domains. Havona and even the grand universe
are watched over by those intrusted with such high responsibilities. But
who fosters and cares for the fundamental needs of the master universe
as a whole, from Paradise to the fourth and outermost space level?
Existentially such overcare is probably attributable to the Paradise
Trinity, but from an experiential viewpoint the appearance of the
post-Havona universes is dependent on:

(136.7)12:6.9 1. The Absolutes in potential.(136.8)12:6.10 2. The Ultimate in direction.(137.1)12:6.11 3. The Supreme in evolutionary co-ordination.(137.2)12:6.12 4. The Architects of the Master Universe in administration prior to the appearance of specific rulers.

(137.3)12:6.13 The
Unqualified Absolute pervades all space. We are not altogether clear as
to the exact status of the Deity and Universal Absolutes, but we know
the latter functions wherever the Deity and Unqualified Absolutes
function. The Deity Absolute may be universally present but hardly space
present. The Ultimate is, or sometime will be, space present to the
outer margins of the fourth space level. We doubt that the Ultimate will
ever have a space presence beyond the periphery of the master universe,
but within this limit the Ultimate is progressively integrating the
creative organization of the potentials of the three Absolutes.

7. The Part and the Whole

(137.4)12:7.1 There is
operative throughout all time and space and with regard to all reality
of whatever nature an inexorable and impersonal law which is equivalent
to the function of a cosmic providence. Mercy characterizes God’s
attitude of love for the individual; impartiality motivates God’s
attitude toward the total. The will of God does not necessarily prevail
in the part — the heart of any one personality — but his will does
actually rule the whole, the universe of universes.(137.5)12:7.2 In all his
dealings with all his beings it is true that the laws of God are not
inherently arbitrary. To you, with your limited vision and finite
viewpoint, the acts of God must often appear to be dictatorial and
arbitrary. The laws of God are merely the habits of God, his way of
repeatedly doing things; and he ever does all things well. You observe
that God does the same thing in the same way, repeatedly, simply because
that is the best way to do that particular thing in a given
circumstance; and the best way is the right way, and therefore does
infinite wisdom always order it done in that precise and perfect manner.
You should also remember that nature is not the exclusive act of Deity;
other influences are present in those phenomena which man calls nature.(137.6)12:7.3 It is
repugnant to the divine nature to suffer any sort of deterioration or
ever to permit the execution of any purely personal act in an inferior
way. It should be made clear, however, that, if, in the
divinity of any situation, in the extremity of any circumstance, in any
case where the course of supreme wisdom might indicate the demand for
different conduct — if the demands of perfection might for any reason
dictate another method of reaction, a better one, then and there would
the all-wise God function in that better and more suitable way. That
would be the expression of a higher law, not the reversal of a lower
law.(137.7)12:7.4 God is not a
habit-bound slave to the chronicity of the repetition of his own
voluntary acts. There is no conflict among the laws of the Infinite;
they are all perfections of the infallible nature; they are all the
unquestioned acts expressive of faultless decisions. Law is the
unchanging reaction of an infinite, perfect, and divine mind. The acts
of God are all volitional notwithstanding this apparent sameness. In God
there “is no variableness neither shadow of changing.” But all this
which can be truly said of the Universal Father cannot be said with
equal certainty of all his subordinate intelligences or of his
evolutionary creatures.(137.8)12:7.5 Because God
is changeless, therefore can you depend, in all ordinary circumstances,
on his doing the same thing in the same identical and ordinary way. God
is the assurance of stability for all created things and beings. He is
God; therefore he changes not.(138.1)12:7.6 And all
this steadfastness of conduct and uniformity of action is personal,
conscious, and highly volitional, for the great God is not a helpless
slave to his own perfection and infinity. God is not a self-acting
automatic force; he is not a slavish law-bound power. God is neither a
mathematical equation nor a chemical formula. He is a freewill and
primal personality. He is the Universal Father, a being surcharged with
personality and the universal fount of all creature personality.(138.2)12:7.7 The will of
God does not uniformly prevail in the heart of the God-seeking material
mortal, but if the time frame is enlarged beyond the moment to embrace
the whole of the first life, then does God’s will become increasingly
discernible in the spirit fruits which are borne in the lives of the
spirit-led children of God. And then, if human life is further enlarged
to include the morontia experience, the divine will is observed to shine
brighter and brighter in the spiritualizing acts of those creatures of
time who have begun to taste the divine delights of experiencing the
relationship of the personality of man with the personality of the
Universal Father.(138.3)12:7.8 The
Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man present the paradox of the
part and the whole on the level of personality. God loves each individual as an individual child in the heavenly family. Yet God thus loves every
individual; he is no respecter of persons, and the universality of his
love brings into being a relationship of the whole, the universal
brotherhood.(138.4)12:7.9 The love of
the Father absolutely individualizes each personality as a unique child
of the Universal Father, a child without duplicate in infinity, a will
creature irreplaceable in all eternity. The Father’s love glorifies each
child of God, illuminating each member of the celestial family, sharply
silhouetting the unique nature of each personal being against the
impersonal levels that lie outside the fraternal circuit of the Father
of all. The love of God strikingly portrays the transcendent value of
each will creature, unmistakably reveals the high value which the
Universal Father has placed upon each and every one of his children from
the highest creator personality of Paradise status to the lowest
personality of will dignity among the savage tribes of men in the dawn
of the human species on some evolutionary world of time and space.(138.5)12:7.10 This very
love of God for the individual brings into being the divine family of
all individuals, the universal brotherhood of the freewill children of
the Paradise Father. And this brotherhood, being universal, is a
relationship of the whole. Brotherhood, when universal, discloses not
the each relationship, but the all relationship.
Brotherhood is a reality of the total and therefore discloses qualities
of the whole in contradistinction to qualities of the part.(138.6)12:7.11
Brotherhood constitutes a fact of relationship between every personality
in universal existence. No person can escape the benefits or the
penalties that may come as a result of relationship to other persons.
The part profits or suffers in measure with the whole. The good effort
of each man benefits all men; the error or evil of each man augments the
tribulation of all men. As moves the part, so moves the whole. As the
progress of the whole, so the progress of the part. The relative
velocities of part and whole determine whether the part is retarded by
the inertia of the whole or is carried forward by the momentum of the
cosmic brotherhood.(139.1)12:7.12 It is a
mystery that God is a highly personal self-conscious being with
residential headquarters, and at the same time personally present in
such a vast universe and personally in contact with such a well-nigh
infinite number of beings. That such a phenomenon is a mystery beyond
human comprehension should not in the least lessen your faith. Do not
allow the magnitude of the infinity, the immensity of the eternity, and
the grandeur and glory of the matchless character of God to overawe,
stagger, or discourage you; for the Father is not very far from any one
of you; he dwells within you, and in him do we all literally move,
actually live, and veritably have our being.(139.2)12:7.13 Even
though the Paradise Father functions through his divine creators and his
creature children, he also enjoys the most intimate inner contact with
you, so sublime, so highly personal, that it is even beyond my
comprehension — that mysterious communion of the Father fragment with
the human soul and with the mortal mind of its actual indwelling.
Knowing what you do of these gifts of God, you therefore know that the
Father is in intimate touch, not only with his divine associates, but
also with his evolutionary mortal children of time. The Father indeed
abides on Paradise, but his divine presence also dwells in the minds of
men.(139.3)12:7.14 Even
though the spirit of a Son be poured out upon all flesh, even though a
Son once dwelt with you in the likeness of mortal flesh, even though the
seraphim personally guard and guide you, how can any of these divine
beings of the Second and Third Centers ever hope to come as near to you
or to understand you as fully as the Father, who has given a part of
himself to be in you, to be your real and divine, even your eternal,
self?

8. Matter, Mind, and Spirit

(139.4)12:8.1 “God is
spirit,” but Paradise is not. The material universe is always the arena
wherein take place all spiritual activities; spirit beings and spirit
ascenders live and work on physical spheres of material reality.(139.5)12:8.2 The
bestowal of cosmic force, the domain of cosmic gravity, is the function
of the Isle of Paradise. All original force-energy proceeds from
Paradise, and the matter for the making of untold universes now
circulates throughout the master universe in the form of a supergravity
presence which constitutes the force-charge of pervaded space.(139.6)12:8.3 Whatever
the transformations of force in the outlying universes, having gone out
from Paradise, it journeys on subject to the never-ending, ever-present,
unfailing pull of the eternal Isle, obediently and inherently swinging
on forever around the eternal space paths of the universes. Physical
energy is the one reality which is true and steadfast in its obedience
to universal law. Only in the realms of creature volition has there been
deviation from the divine paths and the original plans. Power and
energy are the universal evidences of the stability, constancy, and
eternity of the central Isle of Paradise.(139.7)12:8.4 The
bestowal of spirit and the spiritualization of personalities, the domain
of spiritual gravity, is the realm of the Eternal Son. And this spirit
gravity of the Son, ever drawing all spiritual realities to himself, is
just as real and absolute as is the all-powerful material grasp of the
Isle of Paradise. But material-minded man is naturally more familiar
with the material manifestations of a physical nature than with the
equally real and mighty operations of a spiritual nature which are
discerned only by the spiritual insight of the soul.(140.1)12:8.5 As the mind
of any personality in the universe becomes more spiritual — Godlike —
it becomes less responsive to material gravity. Reality, measured by
physical-gravity response, is the antithesis of reality as determined by
quality of spirit content. Physical-gravity action is a quantitative
determiner of nonspirit energy; spiritual-gravity action is the
qualitative measure of the living energy of divinity.(140.2)12:8.6 What
Paradise is to the physical creation, and what the Eternal Son is to the
spiritual universe, the Conjoint Actor is to the realms of mind — the
intelligent universe of material, morontial, and spiritual beings and
personalities.(140.3)12:8.7 The
Conjoint Actor reacts to both material and spiritual realities and
therefore inherently becomes the universal minister to all intelligent
beings, beings who may represent a union of both the material and
spiritual phases of creation. The endowment of intelligence, the
ministry to the material and the spiritual in the phenomenon of mind, is
the exclusive domain of the Conjoint Actor, who thus becomes the
partner of the spiritual mind, the essence of the morontia mind, and the
substance of the material mind of the evolutionary creatures of time.(140.4)12:8.8 Mind is the
technique whereby spirit realities become experiential to creature
personalities. And in the last analysis the unifying possibilities of
even human mind, the ability to co-ordinate things, ideas, and values,
is supermaterial.(140.5)12:8.9 Though it
is hardly possible for the mortal mind to comprehend the seven levels of
relative cosmic reality, the human intellect should be able to grasp
much of the meaning of three functioning levels of finite reality:

(140.6)12:8.10 1. Matter. Organized energy which is subject to linear gravity except as it is modified by motion and conditioned by mind.(140.7)12:8.11 2. Mind.
Organized consciousness which is not wholly subject to material
gravity, and which becomes truly liberated when modified by spirit.(140.8)12:8.12 3. Spirit.
The highest personal reality. True spirit is not subject to physical
gravity but eventually becomes the motivating influence of all evolving
energy systems of personality dignity.

(140.9)12:8.13 The goal
of existence of all personalities is spirit; material manifestations are
relative, and the cosmic mind intervenes between these universal
opposites. The bestowal of mind and the ministration of spirit are the
work of the associate persons of Deity, the Infinite Spirit and the
Eternal Son. Total Deity reality is not mind but spirit-mind —
mind-spirit unified by personality. Nevertheless the absolutes of both
the spirit and the thing converge in the person of the Universal Father.(140.10)12:8.14 On
Paradise the three energies, physical, mindal, and spiritual, are
co-ordinate. In the evolutionary cosmos energy-matter is dominant except
in personality, where spirit, through the mediation of mind, is
striving for the mastery. Spirit is the fundamental reality of the
personality experience of all creatures because God is spirit. Spirit is
unchanging, and therefore, in all personality relations, it transcends
both mind and matter, which are experiential variables of progressive
attainment.(140.11)12:8.15 In
cosmic evolution matter becomes a philosophic shadow cast by mind in the
presence of spirit luminosity of divine enlightenment, but this does
not invalidate the reality of matter-energy. Mind, matter, and spirit
are equally real, but they are not of equal value to personality in the
attainment of divinity. Consciousness of divinity is a progressive
spiritual experience.(141.1)12:8.16 The
brighter the shining of the spiritualized personality (the Father in the
universe, the fragment of potential spirit personality in the
individual creature), the greater the shadow cast by the intervening
mind upon its material investment. In time, man’s body is just as real
as mind or spirit, but in death, both mind (identity) and spirit survive
while the body does not. A cosmic reality can be nonexistent in
personality experience. And so your Greek figure of speech — the
material as the shadow of the more real spirit substance — does have a
philosophic significance.

9. Personal Realities

(141.2)12:9.1 Spirit is
the basic personal reality in the universes, and personality is basic to
all progressing experience with spiritual reality. Every phase of
personality experience on every successive level of universe progression
swarms with clues to the discovery of alluring personal realities.
Man’s true destiny consists in the creation of new and spirit goals and
then in responding to the cosmic allurements of such supernal goals of
nonmaterial value.(141.3)12:9.2 Love is the
secret of beneficial association between personalities. You cannot
really know a person as the result of a single contact. You cannot
appreciatingly know music through mathematical deduction, even though
music is a form of mathematical rhythm. The number assigned to a
telephone subscriber does not in any manner identify the personality of
that subscriber or signify anything concerning his character.(141.4)12:9.3
Mathematics, material science, is indispensable to the intelligent
discussion of the material aspects of the universe, but such knowledge
is not necessarily a part of the higher realization of truth or of the
personal appreciation of spiritual realities. Not only in the realms of
life but even in the world of physical energy, the sum of two or more
things is very often something more than, or something different
from, the predictable additive consequences of such unions. The entire
science of mathematics, the whole domain of philosophy, the highest
physics or chemistry, could not predict or know that the union of two
gaseous hydrogen atoms with one gaseous oxygen atom would result in a
new and qualitatively superadditive substance — liquid water. The
understanding knowledge of this one physiochemical phenomenon should
have prevented the development of materialistic philosophy and
mechanistic cosmology.(141.5)12:9.4 Technical
analysis does not reveal what a person or a thing can do. For example:
Water is used effectively to extinguish fire. That water will put out
fire is a fact of everyday experience, but no analysis of water could
ever be made to disclose such a property. Analysis determines that water
is composed of hydrogen and oxygen; a further study of these elements
discloses that oxygen is the real supporter of combustion and that
hydrogen will itself freely burn.(141.6)12:9.5 Your
religion is becoming real because it is emerging from the slavery of
fear and the bondage of superstition. Your philosophy struggles for
emancipation from dogma and tradition. Your science is engaged in the
agelong contest between truth and error while it fights for deliverance
from the bondage of abstraction, the slavery of mathematics, and the
relative blindness of mechanistic materialism.(142.1)12:9.6 Mortal man
has a spirit nucleus. The mind is a personal-energy system existing
around a divine spirit nucleus and functioning in a material
environment. Such a living relationship of personal mind and spirit
constitutes the universe potential of eternal personality. Real trouble,
lasting disappointment, serious defeat, or inescapable death can come
only after self-concepts presume fully to displace the governing power
of the central spirit nucleus, thereby disrupting the cosmic scheme of
personality identity.(142.2)12:9.7 [Presented by a Perfector of Wisdom acting by authority of the Ancients of Days.]

The Urantia Book

Paper 13

The Sacred Spheres of Paradise

(143.1)13:0.1 BETWEEN the
central Isle of Paradise and the innermost of the Havona planetary
circuits there are situated in space three lesser circuits of special
spheres. The innermost circuit consists of the seven secret spheres of
the Universal Father; the second group is composed of the seven luminous
worlds of the Eternal Son; in the outermost are the seven immense
spheres of the Infinite Spirit, the executive-headquarters worlds of the
Seven Master Spirits.(143.2)13:0.2 These three
seven-world circuits of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are spheres
of unexcelled grandeur and unimagined glory. Even their material or
physical construction is of an order unrevealed to you. Each circuit is
diverse in material, and each world of each circuit is different
excepting the seven worlds of the Son, which are alike in physical
constitution. All twenty-one are enormous spheres, and each group of
seven is differently eternalized. As far as we know they have always
been; like Paradise they are eternal. There exists neither record nor
tradition of their origin.(143.3)13:0.3 The seven
secret spheres of the Universal Father, circulating about Paradise in
close proximity to the eternal Isle, are highly reflective of the
spiritual luminosity of the central shining of the eternal Deities,
shedding this light of divine glory throughout Paradise and even upon
the seven circuits of Havona.(143.4)13:0.4 On the
seven sacred worlds of the Eternal Son there appear to take origin the
impersonal energies of spirit luminosity. No personal being may sojourn
on any of these seven shining realms. With spiritual glory they
illuminate all Paradise and Havona, and they directionize pure spirit
luminosity to the seven superuniverses. These brilliant spheres of the
second circuit likewise emit their light (light without heat) to
Paradise and to the billion worlds of the seven-circuited central
universe.(143.5)13:0.5 The seven
worlds of the Infinite Spirit are occupied by the Seven Master Spirits,
who preside over the destinies of the seven superuniverses, sending
forth the spiritual illumination of the Third Person of Deity to these
creations of time and space. And all Havona, but not the Isle of
Paradise, is bathed in these spiritualizing influences.(143.6)13:0.6 Although
the worlds of the Father are ultimate status spheres for all
Father-endowed personalities, this is not their exclusive function. Many
beings and entities other than personal sojourn on these worlds. Each
world in the circuit of the Father and the circuit of the Spirit has a
distinct type of permanent citizenship, but we think the Son’s worlds
are inhabited by uniform types of other-than-personal beings. Father
fragments are among the natives of Divinington; the other orders of
permanent citizenship are unrevealed to you.(143.7)13:0.7 The
twenty-one Paradise satellites serve many purposes in both central and
superuniverses not disclosed in these narratives. You are able to
understand so little of the life of these spheres that you cannot hope
to gain anything like a consistent view of them, either as to nature or
function; thousands of activities are there going on which are
unrevealed to you. These twenty-one spheres embrace the potentials
of the function of the master universe. These papers afford only a
fleeting glimpse of certain circumscribed activities pertaining to the
present universe age of the grand universe — rather, one of the seven
sectors of the grand universe.

1. The Seven Sacred Worlds of the Father

(144.1)13:1.1 The
Father’s circuit of sacred life spheres contains the only inherent
personality secrets in the universe of universes. These satellites of
Paradise, the innermost of the three circuits, are the only forbidden
domains concerned with personality in the central universe. Nether
Paradise and the worlds of the Son are likewise closed to personalities,
but neither of those realms is in any way directly concerned with
personality.(144.2)13:1.2 The
Paradise worlds of the Father are directed by the highest order of the
Stationary Sons of the Trinity, the Trinitized Secrets of Supremacy. Of
these worlds I can tell little; of their manifold activities I may tell
less. Such information concerns only those beings who function thereon
and go forth therefrom. And though I am somewhat familiar with six of
these special worlds, never have I landed on Divinington; that world is
wholly forbidden to me.(144.3)13:1.3 One of the
reasons for the secrecy of these worlds is because each of these sacred
spheres enjoys a specialized representation, or manifestation, of the
Deities composing the Paradise Trinity; not a personality, but a unique
presence of Divinity which can only be appreciated and comprehended by
those particular groups of intelligences resident on, or admissible to,
that particular sphere. The Trinitized Secrets of Supremacy are the
personal agents of these specialized and impersonal presences of
Divinity. And the Secrets of Supremacy are highly personal beings,
superbly endowed and marvelously adapted to their exalted and exacting
work.(144.4)13:1.4 1.
DIVININGTON. This world is, in a unique sense, the “bosom of the
Father,” the personal-communion sphere of the Universal Father, and
thereon is a special manifestation of his divinity. Divinington is the
Paradise rendezvous of the Thought Adjusters, but it is also the home of
numerous other entities, personalities, and other beings taking origin
in the Universal Father. Many personalities besides the Eternal Son are
of direct origin by the solitary acts of the Universal Father. Only the
Father fragments and those personalities and other beings of direct and
exclusive origin in the Universal Father fraternize and function on this
abode.(144.5)13:1.5The secrets of Divinington
include the secret of the bestowal and mission of Thought Adjusters.
Their nature, origin, and the technique of their contact with the lowly
creatures of the evolutionary worlds is a secret of this Paradise
sphere. These amazing transactions do not personally concern the rest of
us, and therefore do the Deities deem it proper to withhold certain
features of this great and divine ministry from our full understanding.
In so far as we come in contact with this phase of divine activity, we
are permitted full knowledge of these transactions, but concerning the
intimate details of this great bestowal we are not fully informed.(145.1)13:1.6 This sphere
also holds the secrets of the nature, purpose, and activities of all
other forms of Father fragments, of the Gravity Messengers, and of hosts
of other beings unrevealed to you. It is highly probable that those
truths pertaining to Divinington which are withheld from me, if
revealed, would merely confuse and handicap me in my present work, and
still again, perhaps they are beyond the conceptual capacity of my order
of being.(145.2)13:1.7 2.
SONARINGTON. This sphere is the “bosom of the Son,” the personal
receiving world of the Eternal Son. It is the Paradise headquarters of
the descending and ascending Sons of God when, and after, they are fully
accredited and finally approved. This world is the Paradise home for
all Sons of the Eternal Son and of his co-ordinate and associate Sons.
There are numerous orders of divine sonship attached to this supernal
abode which have not been revealed to mortals since they are not
concerned with the plans of the ascension scheme of human spiritual
progression through the universes and on to Paradise.(145.3)13:1.8The secrets of Sonarington
include the secret of the incarnation of the divine Sons. When a Son of
God becomes a Son of Man, is literally born of woman, as occurred on
your world nineteen hundred years ago, it is a universal mystery. It is
occurring right along throughout the universes, and it is a Sonarington
secret of divine sonship. The Adjusters are a mystery of God the Father.
The incarnation of the divine Sons is a mystery of God the Son; it is a
secret locked up in the seventh sector of Sonarington, a realm
penetrated by none save those who have personally passed through this
unique experience. Only those phases of incarnation having to do with
your ascension career have been brought to your notice. There are many
other phases of the mystery of the incarnation of the Paradise Sons of
unrevealed types on missions of universe service which are undisclosed
to you. And there are still other Sonarington mysteries.(145.4)13:1.9 3.
SPIRITINGTON. This world is the “bosom of the Spirit,” the Paradise home
of the high beings that exclusively represent the Infinite Spirit. Here
forgather the Seven Master Spirits and certain of their offspring from
all universes. At this celestial abode may also be found numerous
unrevealed orders of spirit personalities, beings assigned to the
manifold activities of the universe not associated with the plans of
upstepping the mortal creatures of time to the Paradise levels of
eternity.(145.5)13:1.10The secrets of Spiritington
involve the impenetrable mysteries of reflectivity. We tell you of the
vast and universal phenomenon of reflectivity, more particularly as it
is operative on the headquarters worlds of the seven superuniverses, but
we never fully explain this phenomenon, for we do not fully understand
it. Much, very much, we do comprehend, but many basic details are still
mysterious to us. Reflectivity is a secret of God the Spirit. You have
been instructed concerning reflectivity functions in relation to the
ascension scheme of mortal survival, and it does so operate, but
reflectivity is also an indispensable feature of the normal working of
numerous other phases of universe occupation. This endowment of the
Infinite Spirit is also utilized in channels other than those of
intelligence gathering and information dissemination. And there are
other secrets of Spiritington.(145.6)13:1.11 4.
VICEGERINGTON. This planet is the “bosom of the Father and the Son” and
is the secret sphere of certain unrevealed beings who take origin by the
acts of the Father and the Son. This is also the Paradise home of many
glorified beings of complex ancestry, those whose origin is complicated
because of the many diverse techniques operative in the seven
superuniverses. Many groups of beings forgather on this world whose
identity has not been revealed to Urantia mortals.(146.1)13:1.12The secrets of Vicegerington
include the secrets of trinitization, and trinitization constitutes the
secret of authority to represent the Trinity, to act as vicegerents of
the Gods. Authority to represent the Trinity attaches only to those
beings, revealed and unrevealed, who are trinitized, created,
eventuated, or eternalized by any two or all three of the Paradise
Trinity. Personalities brought into being by the trinitizing acts of
certain types of glorified creatures represent no more than the
conceptual potential mobilized in that trinitization, albeit such
creatures may ascend the path of Deity embrace open to all of their
kind.(146.2)13:1.13
Nontrinitized beings do not fully understand the technique of
trinitization by either two or three Creators or by certain creatures.
You will never fully understand such a phenomenon unless, in the
far-distant future of your glorified career, you should essay and
succeed in such an adventure, because otherwise these secrets of
Vicegerington will always be forbidden you. But to me, a high
Trinity-origin being, all sectors of Vicegerington are open. I fully
understand, and just as fully and sacredly protect, the secret of my
origin and destiny.(146.3)13:1.14 There are
still other forms and phases of trinitization which have not been
brought to the notice of the Urantia peoples, and these experiences, in
their personal aspects, are duly protected in the secret sector of
Vicegerington.(146.4)13:1.15 5.
SOLITARINGTON. This world is the “bosom of the Father and the Spirit”
and is the rendezvous of a magnificent host of unrevealed beings of
origin in the conjoint acts of the Universal Father and the Infinite
Spirit, beings who partake of the traits of the Father in addition to
their Spirit inheritance.(146.5)13:1.16 This is
also the home of the Solitary Messengers and of other personalities of
the superangelic orders. You know of very few of these beings; there are
vast numbers of orders unrevealed on Urantia. Because they are
domiciled on the fifth world, it does not necessarily follow that the
Father had aught to do with the creation of Solitary Messengers or their
superangelic associates, but in this universe age he does have to do
with their function. During the present universe age this is also the
status sphere of the Universe Power Directors.(146.6)13:1.17 There are
numerous additional orders of spirit personalities, beings unknown to
mortal man, who look upon Solitarington as their Paradise home sphere.
It should be remembered that all divisions and levels of universe
activities are just as fully provided with spirit ministers as is the
realm concerned with helping mortal man ascend to his divine Paradise
destiny.(146.7)13:1.18The secrets of Solitarington.
Besides certain secrets of trinitization, this world holds the secrets
of the personal relation of the Infinite Spirit with certain of the
higher offspring of the Third Source and Center. On Solitarington are
held the mysteries of the intimate association of numerous unrevealed
orders with the spirits of the Father, of the Son, and of the Spirit,
with the threefold spirit of the Trinity, and with the spirits of the
Supreme, the Ultimate, and the Supreme-Ultimate.(146.8)13:1.19 6.
SERAPHINGTON. This sphere is the “bosom of the Son and the Spirit” and
is the home world of the vast hosts of unrevealed beings created by the
Son and the Spirit. This is also the destiny sphere of all ministering
orders of the angelic hosts, including supernaphim, seconaphim, and
seraphim. There also serve in the central and outlying universes many
orders of superb spirits who are not “ministering spirits to those who
shall be heirs of salvation.” All these spirit workers in all levels and
realms of universe activities look upon Seraphington as their Paradise
home.(147.1)13:1.20The secrets of Seraphington
involve a threefold mystery, only one of which I may mention — the
mystery of seraphic transport. The ability of various orders of seraphim
and allied spirit beings to envelop within their spirit forms all
orders of nonmaterial personalities and to carry them away on lengthy
interplanetary journeys, is a secret locked up in the sacred sectors of
Seraphington. The transport seraphim comprehend this mystery, but they
do not communicate it to the rest of us, or perhaps they cannot. The
other mysteries of Seraphington pertain to the personal experiences of
types of spirit servers as yet not revealed to mortals. And we refrain
from discussing the secrets of such closely related beings because you
can almost comprehend such near orders of existence, and it would be
akin to betrayal of trust to present even our partial knowledge of such
phenomena.(147.2)13:1.21 7.
ASCENDINGTON. This unique world is the “bosom of the Father, Son, and
Spirit,” the rendezvous of the ascendant creatures of space, the
receiving sphere of the pilgrims of time who are passing through the
Havona universe on their way to Paradise. Ascendington is the actual
Paradise home of the ascendant souls of time and space until they attain
Paradise status. You mortals will spend most of your Havona “vacations”
on Ascendington. During your Havona life Ascendington will be to you
what the reversion directors were during the local and superuniverse
ascension. Here you will engage in thousands of activities which are
beyond the grasp of mortal imagination. And as on every previous advance
in the Godward ascent, your human self will here enter into new
relationships with your divine self.(147.3)13:1.22The secrets of Ascendington
include the mystery of the gradual and certain building up in the
material and mortal mind of a spiritual and potentially immortal
counterpart of character and identity. This phenomenon constitutes one
of the most perplexing mysteries of the universes — the evolution of an
immortal soul within the mind of a mortal and material creature.(147.4)13:1.23 You will
never fully understand this mysterious transaction until you reach
Ascendington. And that is just why all Ascendington will be open to your
wondering gaze. One seventh of Ascendington is forbidden to me — that
sector concerned with this very secret which is (or will be) the
exclusive experience and possession of your type of being. This
experience belongs to your human order of existence. My order of
personality is not directly concerned with such transactions. It is
therefore forbidden to me and eventually revealed to you. But even after
it is revealed to you, for some reason it forever remains your secret.
You do not reveal it to us nor to any other order of beings. We know
about the eternal fusion of a divine Adjuster and an immortal soul of
human origin, but the ascendant finaliters know this very experience as
an absolute reality.

2. Father-World Relationships

(147.5)13:2.1 These home
worlds of the diverse orders of spiritual beings are tremendous and
stupendous spheres, and they are equal to Paradise in their matchless
beauty and superb glory. They are rendezvous worlds, reunion spheres,
serving as permanent cosmic addresses. As finaliters you will be
domiciled on Paradise, but Ascendington will be your home address at all
times, even when you enter service in outer space. Through all eternity
you will regard Ascendington as your home of sentimental memories and
reminiscent recollections. When you become seventh-stage spirit beings,
possibly you will give up your residential status on Paradise.(148.1)13:2.2 If outer
universes are in the making, if they are to be inhabited by time
creatures of ascension potential, then we infer that these children of
the future will also be destined to look upon Ascendington as their
Paradise home world.(148.2)13:2.3
Ascendington is the only sacred sphere that will be unreservedly open to
your inspection as a Paradise arrival. Vicegerington is the only sacred
sphere that is wholly and unreservedly open to my scrutiny. Though its
secrets are concerned in my origin, in this universe age I do not regard
Vicegerington as my home. Trinity-origin beings and trinitized beings
are not the same.(148.3)13:2.4 The
Trinity-origin beings do not fully share the Father’s worlds; they have
their sole homes on the Isle of Paradise in close proximity to the Most
Holy Sphere. They often appear on Ascendington, the “bosom of the
Father-Son-Spirit,” where they fraternize with their brethren who have
come up from the lowly worlds of space.(148.4)13:2.5 You might
assume that Creator Sons, being of Father-Son origin, would regard
Vicegerington as their home, but such is not the case in this universe
age of the function of God the Sevenfold. And there are many similar
problems that will perplex you, for you are sure to encounter many
difficulties as you attempt to understand these things which are so near
Paradise. Nor can you successfully reason out these questions; you know
so little. And if you knew more about the Father’s worlds, you would
simply encounter more difficulties until you knew all about
them. Status on any of these secret worlds is acquired by service as
well as by nature of origin, and the successive universe ages may and do
redistribute certain of these personality groupings.(148.5)13:2.6 The worlds
of the inner circuit are really fraternal or status worlds more than
actual residential spheres. Mortals will attain some status on each of
the Father’s worlds save one. For example: When you mortals attain
Havona, you are granted clearance for Ascendington, where you are most
welcome, but you are not permitted to visit the other six sacred worlds.
Subsequent to your passage through the Paradise regime and after your
admission to the Corps of the Finality, you are granted clearance for
Sonarington since you are sons of God as well as ascenders — and you are
even more. But there will always remain one seventh of Sonarington, the
sector of the incarnation secrets of the divine Sons, which will not be
open to your scrutiny. Never will those secrets be revealed to the
ascendant sons of God.(148.6)13:2.7 Eventually
you will have full access to Ascendington and relative access to the
other spheres of the Father except Divinington. But even when you are
granted permission to land on five additional secret spheres, after you
have become a finaliter, you will not be allowed to visit all sectors of
such worlds. Nor will you be permitted to land on the shores of
Divinington, the “bosom of the Father,” though you shall surely stand
repeatedly at the “right hand of the Father.” Never throughout all
eternity will there arise any necessity for your presence on the world
of the Thought Adjusters.(149.1)13:2.8 These
rendezvous worlds of spirit life are forbidden ground to the extent that
we are asked not to negotiate entrance to those phases of these spheres
which are wholly outside our realms of experience. You may become
creature perfect even as the Universal Father is deity perfect, but you
may not know all the experiential secrets of all other orders of
universe personalities. When the Creator has an experiential personality
secret with his creature, the Creator preserves that secret in eternal
confidence.(149.2)13:2.9 All these
secrets are supposedly known to the collective body of the Trinitized
Secrets of Supremacy. These beings are fully known only by their special
world groups; they are little comprehended by other orders. After you
attain Paradise, you will know and ardently love the ten Secrets of
Supremacy who direct Ascendington. Excepting Divinington, you will also
achieve a partial understanding of the Secrets of Supremacy on the other
worlds of the Father, though not so perfectly as on Ascendington.(149.3)13:2.10 The
Trinitized Secrets of Supremacy, as their name might suggest, are
related to the Supreme; they are likewise related to the Ultimate and to
the future Supreme-Ultimate. These Secrets of Supremacy are the secrets
of the Supreme and also the secrets of the Ultimate, even the secrets
of the Supreme-Ultimate.

3. The Sacred Worlds of the Eternal Son

(149.4)13:3.1 The seven
luminous spheres of the Eternal Son are the worlds of the seven phases
of pure-spirit existence. These shining orbs are the source of the
threefold light of Paradise and Havona, their influence being largely,
but not wholly, confined to the central universe.(149.5)13:3.2 Personality
is not present on these Paradise satellites; therefore is there little
concerning these pure-spirit abodes which can be presented to the mortal
and material personality. We are taught that these worlds teem with the
otherwise-than-personal life of the beings of the Eternal Son. We infer
that these entities are being assembled for ministry in the projected
new universes of outer space. The Paradise philosophers maintain that
each Paradise cycle, about two billion years of Urantia time, witnesses
the creation of additional reserves of these orders on the secret worlds
of the Eternal Son.(149.6)13:3.3 As far as I
am informed, no personality has ever been on any one of these spheres
of the Eternal Son. I have never been assigned to visit one of these
worlds in all my long experience in and out of Paradise. Even the
personalities cocreated by the Eternal Son do not go to these worlds. We
infer that all types of impersonal spirits — regardless of parentage —
are admitted to these spirit homes. As I am a person and have a spirit
form, no doubt such a world would seem empty and deserted even if I were
permitted to pay it a visit. High spirit personalities are not given to
the gratification of purposeless curiosity, purely useless adventure.
There is at all times altogether too much intriguing and purposeful
adventure to permit the development of any great interest in those
projects which are either futile or unreal.

4. The Worlds of the Infinite Spirit

(149.7)13:4.1 Between the
inner circuit of Havona and the shining spheres of the Eternal Son
there circle the seven orbs of the Infinite Spirit, worlds inhabited by
the offspring of the Infinite Spirit, by the trinitized sons of
glorified created personalities, and by other types of unrevealed beings
concerned with the effective administration of the many enterprises of
the various realms of universe activities.(150.1)13:4.2 The Seven
Master Spirits are the supreme and ultimate representatives of the
Infinite Spirit. They maintain their personal stations, their power
focuses, on the periphery of Paradise, but all operations concerned with
their management and direction of the grand universe are conducted on
and from these seven special executive spheres of the Infinite Spirit.
The Seven Master Spirits are, in reality, the mind-spirit balance wheel
of the universe of universes, an all-embracing, all-encompassing, and
all-co-ordinating power of central location.(150.2)13:4.3 From these
seven special spheres the Master Spirits operate to equalize and
stabilize the cosmic-mind circuits of the grand universe. They also have
to do with the differential spiritual attitude and presence of the
Deities throughout the grand universe. Physical reactions are uniform,
unvarying, and always instantaneous and automatic. But experiential
spiritual presence is in accordance with the underlying conditions or
states of spiritual receptivity inherent in the individual minds of the
realms.(150.3)13:4.4 Physical
authority, presence, and function are unvarying in all the universes,
small or great. The differing factor in spiritual presence, or reaction,
is the fluctuating differential in its recognition and reception by
will creatures. Whereas the spiritual presence of absolute and
existential Deity is in no manner whatever influenced by attitudes of
loyalty or disloyalty on the part of created beings, at the same time it
is true that the functioning presence of subabsolute and experiential
Deity is definitely and directly influenced by the decisions, choices,
and will-attitudes of such finite creature beings — by the loyalty and
devotion of the individual being, planet, system, constellation, or
universe. But this spiritual presence of divinity is not whimsical nor
arbitrary; its experiential variance is inherent in the freewill
endowment of personal creatures.(150.4)13:4.5 The
determiner of the differential of spiritual presence exists in your own
hearts and minds and consists in the manner of your own choosing, in the
decisions of your minds, and in the determination of your own wills.
This differential is inherent in the freewill reactions of intelligent
personal beings, beings whom the Universal Father has ordained shall
exercise this liberty of choosing. And the Deities are ever true to the
ebb and flow of their spirits in meeting and satisfying the conditions
and demands of this differential of creature choice, now bestowing more
of their presence in response to a sincere desire for the same and again
withdrawing themselves from the scene as their creatures decide
adversely in the exercise of their divinely bestowed freedom of choice.
And thus does the spirit of divinity become humbly obedient to the
choosing of the creatures of the realms.(150.5)13:4.6 The
executive abodes of the Seven Master Spirits are, in reality, the
Paradise headquarters of the seven superuniverses and their correlated
segments in outer space. Each Master Spirit presides over one
superuniverse, and each of these seven worlds is exclusively assigned to
one of the Master Spirits. There is literally no phase of the
sub-Paradise administration of the seven superuniverses which is not
provided for on these executive worlds. They are not so exclusive as the
spheres of the Father or those of the Son, and though residential
status is limited to native beings and those who work thereon, these
seven administrative planets are always open to all beings who desire to
visit them, and who can command the necessary means of transit.(151.1)13:4.7 To me,
these executive worlds are the most interesting and intriguing spots
outside of Paradise. In no other place in the wide universe can one
observe such varied activities, involving so many different orders of
living beings, having to do with operations on so many diverse levels,
occupations at once material, intellectual, and spiritual. When I am
accorded a period of release from assignment, if I chance to be on
Paradise or in Havona, I usually proceed to one of these busy worlds of
the Seven Master Spirits, there to inspire my mind with such spectacles
of enterprise, devotion, loyalty, wisdom, and effectiveness. Nowhere
else can I observe such an amazing interassociation of personality
performances on all seven levels of universe reality. And I am always
stimulated by the activities of those who well know how to do their
work, and who so thoroughly enjoy doing it.(151.2)13:4.8 [Presented by a Perfector of Wisdom commissioned thus to function by the Ancients of Days on Uversa.]

The Urantia Book

Paper 14

The Central and Divine Universe

(152.1)14:0.1 THE perfect
and divine universe occupies the center of all creation; it is the
eternal core around which the vast creations of time and space revolve.
Paradise is the gigantic nuclear Isle of absolute stability which rests
motionless at the very heart of the magnificent eternal universe. This
central planetary family is called Havona and is far-distant from the
local universe of Nebadon. It is of enormous dimensions and almost
unbelievable mass and consists of one billion spheres of unimagined
beauty and superb grandeur, but the true magnitude of this vast creation
is really beyond the understanding grasp of the human mind.(152.2)14:0.2 This is the
one and only settled, perfect, and established aggregation of worlds.
This is a wholly created and perfect universe; it is not an evolutionary
development. This is the eternal core of perfection, about which swirls
that endless procession of universes which constitute the tremendous
evolutionary experiment, the audacious adventure of the Creator Sons of
God, who aspire to duplicate in time and to reproduce in space the
pattern universe, the ideal of divine completeness, supreme finality,
ultimate reality, and eternal perfection.

1. The Paradise-Havona System

(152.3)14:1.1 From the
periphery of Paradise to the inner borders of the seven superuniverses
there are the following seven space conditions and motions:

(152.4)14:1.2 1. The quiescent midspace zones impinging on Paradise.(152.5)14:1.3 2. The clockwise processional of the three Paradise and the seven Havona circuits.(152.6)14:1.4 3. The semiquiet space zone separating the Havona circuits from the dark gravity bodies of the central universe.(152.7)14:1.5 4. The inner, counterclockwise-moving belt of the dark gravity bodies.(152.8)14:1.6 5. The second unique space zone dividing the two space paths of the dark gravity bodies.(152.9)14:1.7 6. The outer belt of dark gravity bodies, revolving clockwise around Paradise.(152.10)14:1.8 7. A third
space zone — a semiquiet zone — separating the outer belt of dark
gravity bodies from the innermost circuits of the seven superuniverses.

(152.11)14:1.9 The
billion worlds of Havona are arranged in seven concentric circuits
immediately surrounding the three circuits of Paradise satellites. There
are upwards of thirty-five million worlds in the innermost Havona
circuit and over two hundred and forty-five million in the outermost,
with proportionate numbers intervening. Each circuit differs, but all
are perfectly balanced and exquisitely organized, and each is pervaded
by a specialized representation of the Infinite Spirit, one of the Seven
Spirits of the Circuits. In addition to other functions this impersonal
Spirit co-ordinates the conduct of celestial affairs throughout each
circuit.(153.1)14:1.10 The
Havona planetary circuits are not superimposed; their worlds follow each
other in an orderly linear procession. The central universe whirls
around the stationary Isle of Paradise in one vast plane, consisting of
ten concentric stabilized units — the three circuits of Paradise spheres
and the seven circuits of Havona worlds. Physically regarded, the
Havona and the Paradise circuits are all one and the same system; their
separation is in recognition of functional and administrative
segregation.(153.2)14:1.11 Time is
not reckoned on Paradise; the sequence of successive events is inherent
in the concept of those who are indigenous to the central Isle. But time
is germane to the Havona circuits and to numerous beings of both
celestial and terrestrial origin sojourning thereon. Each Havona world
has its own local time, determined by its circuit. All worlds in a given
circuit have the same length of year since they uniformly swing around
Paradise, and the length of these planetary years decreases from the
outermost to the innermost circuit.(153.3)14:1.12 Besides
Havona-circuit time, there is the Paradise-Havona standard day and other
time designations which are determined on, and are sent out from, the
seven Paradise satellites of the Infinite Spirit. The Paradise-Havona
standard day is based on the length of time required for the planetary
abodes of the first or inner Havona circuit to complete one revolution
around the Isle of Paradise; and though their velocity is enormous,
owing to their situation between the dark gravity bodies and gigantic
Paradise, it requires almost one thousand years for these spheres to
complete their circuit. You have unwittingly read the truth when your
eyes rested on the statement “A day is as a thousand years with God, as
but a watch in the night.” One Paradise-Havona day is just seven
minutes, three and one-eighth seconds less than one thousand years of
the present Urantia leap-year calendar.(153.4)14:1.13 This
Paradise-Havona day is the standard time measurement for the seven
superuniverses, although each maintains its own internal time standards.(153.5)14:1.14 On the
outskirts of this vast central universe, far out beyond the seventh belt
of Havona worlds, there swirl an unbelievable number of enormous dark
gravity bodies. These multitudinous dark masses are quite unlike other
space bodies in many particulars; even in form they are very different.
These dark gravity bodies neither reflect nor absorb light; they are
nonreactive to physical-energy light, and they so completely encircle
and enshroud Havona as to hide it from the view of even near-by
inhabited universes of time and space.(153.6)14:1.15 The great
belt of dark gravity bodies is divided into two equal elliptical
circuits by a unique space intrusion. The inner belt revolves
counterclockwise; the outer revolves clockwise. These alternate
directions of motion, coupled with the extraordinary mass of the dark
bodies, so effectively equalize the lines of Havona gravity as to render
the central universe a physically balanced and perfectly stabilized
creation.(153.7)14:1.16 The inner
procession of dark gravity bodies is tubular in arrangement, consisting
of three circular groupings. A cross section of this circuit would
exhibit three concentric circles of about equal density. The outer
circuit of dark gravity bodies is arranged perpendicularly, being ten
thousand times higher than the inner circuit. The up-and-down diameter
of the outer circuit is fifty thousand times that of the transverse
diameter.(154.1)14:1.17 The intervening space which exists between these two circuits of gravity bodies is unique
in that nothing like it is to be found elsewhere in all the wide
universe. This zone is characterized by enormous wave movements of an
up-and-down nature and is permeated by tremendous energy activities of
an unknown order.(154.2)14:1.18 In our
opinion, nothing like the dark gravity bodies of the central universe
will characterize the future evolution of the outer space levels; we
regard these alternate processions of stupendous gravity-balancing
bodies as unique in the master universe.

2. Constitution of Havona

(154.3)14:2.1 Spirit
beings do not dwell in nebulous space; they do not inhabit ethereal
worlds; they are domiciled on actual spheres of a material nature,
worlds just as real as those on which mortals live. The Havona worlds
are actual and literal, albeit their literal substance differs from the
material organization of the planets of the seven superuniverses.(154.4)14:2.2 The
physical realities of Havona represent an order of energy organization
radically different from any prevailing in the evolutionary universes of
space. Havona energies are threefold; superuniverse units of
energy-matter contain a twofold energy charge, although one form of
energy exists in negative and positive phases. The creation of the
central universe is threefold (Trinity); the creation of a local
universe (directly) is twofold, by a Creator Son and a Creative Spirit.(154.5)14:2.3 The
material of Havona consists of the organization of exactly one thousand
basic chemical elements and the balanced function of the seven forms of
Havona energy. Each of these basic energies manifests seven phases of
excitation, so that the Havona natives respond to forty-nine differing
sensation stimuli. In other words, viewed from a purely physical
standpoint, the natives of the central universe possess forty-nine
specialized forms of sensation. The morontia senses are seventy, and the
higher spiritual orders of reaction response vary in different types of
beings from seventy to two hundred and ten.(154.6)14:2.4 None of the
physical beings of the central universe would be visible to Urantians.
Neither would any of the physical stimuli of those faraway worlds excite
a reaction in your gross sense organs. If a Urantia mortal could be
transported to Havona, he would there be deaf, blind, and utterly
lacking in all other sense reactions; he could only function as a
limited self-conscious being deprived of all environmental stimuli and
all reactions thereto.(154.7)14:2.5 There are
numerous physical phenomena and spiritual reactions transpiring in the
central creation which are unknown on worlds such as Urantia. The basic
organization of a threefold creation is wholly unlike that of the
twofold constitution of the created universes of time and space.(154.8)14:2.6 All natural
law is co-ordinated on a basis entirely different than in the
dual-energy systems of the evolving creations. The entire central
universe is organized in accordance with the threefold system of perfect
and symmetrical control. Throughout the whole Paradise-Havona system
there is maintained a perfect balance between all cosmic realities and
all spiritual forces. Paradise, with an absolute grasp of material
creation, perfectly regulates and maintains the physical energies of
this central universe; the Eternal Son, as a part of his all-embracing
spirit grasp, most perfectly sustains the spiritual status of all who
indwell Havona. On Paradise nothing is experimental, and the
Paradise-Havona system is a unit of creative perfection.(155.1)14:2.7 The
universal spiritual gravity of the Eternal Son is amazingly active
throughout the central universe. All spirit values and spiritual
personalities are unceasingly drawn inward towards the abode of the
Gods. This Godward urge is intense and inescapable. The ambition to
attain God is stronger in the central universe, not because spirit
gravity is stronger than in the outlying universes, but because those
beings who have attained Havona are more fully spiritualized and hence
more responsive to the ever-present action of the universal
spirit-gravity pull of the Eternal Son.(155.2)14:2.8 Likewise
does the Infinite Spirit draw all intellectual values Paradiseward.
Throughout the central universe the mind gravity of the Infinite Spirit
functions in liaison with the spirit gravity of the Eternal Son, and
these together constitute the combined urge of the ascendant souls to
find God, to attain Deity, to achieve Paradise, and to know the Father.(155.3)14:2.9 Havona is a
spiritually perfect and physically stable universe. The control and
balanced stability of the central universe appear to be perfect.
Everything physical or spiritual is perfectly predictable, but mind
phenomena and personality volition are not. We do infer that sin can be
reckoned as impossible of occurrence, but we do this on the ground that
the native freewill creatures of Havona have never been guilty of
transgressing the will of Deity. Through all eternity these supernal
beings have been consistently loyal to the Eternals of Days. Neither has
sin appeared in any creature who has entered Havona as a pilgrim. There
has never been an instance of misconduct by any creature of any group
of personalities ever created in, or admitted to, the central Havona
universe. So perfect and so divine are the methods and means of
selection in the universes of time that never in the records of Havona
has an error occurred; no mistakes have ever been made; no ascendant
soul has ever been prematurely admitted to the central universe.

3. The Havona Worlds

(155.4)14:3.1 Concerning
the government of the central universe, there is none. Havona is so
exquisitely perfect that no intellectual system of government is
required. There are no regularly constituted courts, neither are there
legislative assemblies; Havona requires only administrative direction.
Here may be observed the height of the ideals of true self-government.(155.5)14:3.2 There is no
need of government among such perfect and near-perfect intelligences.
They stand in no need of regulation, for they are beings of native
perfection interspersed with evolutionary creatures who have long since
passed the scrutiny of the supreme tribunals of the superuniverses.(155.6)14:3.3 The
administration of Havona is not automatic, but it is marvelously perfect
and divinely efficient. It is chiefly planetary and is vested in the
resident Eternal of Days, each Havona sphere being directed by one of
these Trinity-origin personalities. Eternals of Days are not creators,
but they are perfect administrators. They teach with supreme skill and
direct their planetary children with a perfection of wisdom bordering on
absoluteness.(156.1)14:3.4 The billion
spheres of the central universe constitute the training worlds of the
high personalities native to Paradise and Havona and further serve as
the final proving grounds for ascending creatures from the evolutionary
worlds of time. In the execution of the Universal Father’s great plan of
creature ascension the pilgrims of time are landed on the receiving
worlds of the outer or seventh circuit, and subsequent to increased
training and enlarged experience, they are progressively advanced
inward, planet by planet and circle by circle, until they finally attain
the Deities and achieve residence on Paradise.(156.2)14:3.5 At present,
although the spheres of the seven circuits are maintained in all their
supernal glory, only about one per cent of all planetary capacity is
utilized in the work of furthering the Father’s universal plan of mortal
ascension. About one tenth of one per cent of the area of these
enormous worlds is dedicated to the life and activities of the Corps of
the Finality, beings eternally settled in light and life who often
sojourn and minister on the Havona worlds. These exalted beings have
their personal residences on Paradise.(156.3)14:3.6 The
planetary construction of the Havona spheres is entirely unlike that of
the evolutionary worlds and systems of space. Nowhere else in all the
grand universe is it convenient to utilize such enormous spheres as
inhabited worlds. Triata physical constitution, coupled with the
balancing effect of the immense dark gravity bodies, makes it possible
so perfectly to equalize the physical forces and so exquisitely to
balance the various attractions of this tremendous creation. Antigravity
is also employed in the organization of the material functions and the
spiritual activities of these enormous worlds.(156.4)14:3.7 The
architecture, lighting, and heating, as well as the biologic and
artistic embellishment, of the Havona spheres, are quite beyond the
greatest possible stretch of human imagination. You cannot be told much
about Havona; to understand its beauty and grandeur you must see it. But
there are real rivers and lakes on these perfect worlds.(156.5)14:3.8 Spiritually
these worlds are ideally appointed; they are fittingly adapted to their
purpose of harboring the numerous orders of differing beings who
function in the central universe. Manifold activities take place on
these beautiful worlds which are far beyond human comprehension.

4. Creatures of the Central Universe

(156.6)14:4.1 There are
seven basic forms of living things and beings on the Havona worlds, and
each of these basic forms exists in three distinct phases. Each of these
three phases is divided into seventy major divisions, and each major
division is composed of one thousand minor divisions, with yet other
subdivisions, and so on. These basic life groups might be classified as:

(157.1)14:4.9 Decay and
death are not a part of the cycle of life on the Havona worlds. In the
central universe the lower living things undergo the transmutation of
materialization. They do change form and manifestation, but they do not
resolve by process of decay and cellular death.(157.2)14:4.10 The
Havona natives are all the offspring of the Paradise Trinity. They are
without creature parents, and they are nonreproducing beings. We cannot
portray the creation of these citizens of the central universe, beings
who never were created. The entire story of the creation of Havona is an
attempt to time-space an eternity fact which has no relation to time or
space as mortal man comprehends them. But we must concede human
philosophy a point of origin; even personalities far above the human
level require a concept of “beginnings.” Nevertheless, the
Paradise-Havona system is eternal.(157.3)14:4.11 The
natives of Havona live on the billion spheres of the central universe in
the same sense that other orders of permanent citizenship dwell on
their respective spheres of nativity. As the material order of sonship
carries on the material, intellectual, and spiritual economy of a
billion local systems in a superuniverse, so, in a larger sense, do the
Havona natives live and function on the billion worlds of the central
universe. You might possibly regard these Havoners as material creatures
in the sense that the word “material” could be expanded to describe the
physical realities of the divine universe.(157.4)14:4.12 There is a
life that is native to Havona and possesses significance in and of
itself. Havoners minister in many ways to Paradise descenders and to
superuniverse ascenders, but they also live lives that are unique in the
central universe and have relative meaning quite apart from either
Paradise or the superuniverses.(157.5)14:4.13 As the
worship of the faith sons of the evolutionary worlds ministers to the
satisfaction of the Universal Father’s love, so the exalted adoration of
the Havona creatures satiates the perfect ideals of divine beauty and
truth. As mortal man strives to do the will of God, these beings of the
central universe live to gratify the ideals of the Paradise Trinity. In
their very nature they are the will of God. Man rejoices in the
goodness of God, Havoners exult in the divine beauty, while you both
enjoy the ministry of the liberty of living truth.(157.6)14:4.14 Havoners
have both optional present and future unrevealed destinies. And there is
a progression of native creatures that is peculiar to the central
universe, a progression that involves neither ascent to Paradise nor
penetration of the superuniverses. This progression to higher Havona
status may be suggested as follows:

(157.7)14:4.15 1. Experiential progress outward from the first to the seventh circuit.(157.8)14:4.16 2. Progress inward from the seventh to the first circuit.(157.9)14:4.17 3. Intracircuit progress — progression within the worlds of a given circuit.

(157.10)14:4.18 In
addition to the Havona natives, the inhabitants of the central universe
embrace numerous classes of pattern beings for various universe groups —
advisers, directors, and teachers of their kind and to their kind
throughout creation. All beings in all universes are fashioned along the
lines of some one order of pattern creature living on some one of the
billion worlds of Havona. Even the mortals of time have their goal and
ideals of creature existence on the outer circuits of these pattern
spheres on high.(157.11)14:4.19 Then
there are those beings who have attained the Universal Father, and who
are entitled to go and come, who are assigned here and there in the
universes on missions of special service. And on every Havona world will
be found the attainment candidates, those who have physically attained
the central universe, but who have not yet achieved that spiritual
development which will enable them to claim Paradise residence.(158.1)14:4.20 The
Infinite Spirit is represented on the Havona worlds by a host of
personalities, beings of grace and glory, who administer the details of
the intricate intellectual and spiritual affairs of the central
universe. On these worlds of divine perfection they perform the work
indigenous to the normal conduct of this vast creation and, in addition,
carry on the manifold tasks of teaching, training, and ministering to
the enormous numbers of ascendant creatures who have climbed to glory
from the dark worlds of space.(158.2)14:4.21 There are
numerous groups of beings native to the Paradise-Havona system that are
in no way directly associated with the ascension scheme of creature
perfection attainment; therefore are they omitted from the personality
classifications presented to the mortal races. Only the major groups of
superhuman beings and those orders directly connected with your survival
experience are herein presented.(158.3)14:4.22 Havona
teems with the life of all phases of intelligent beings, who there seek
to advance from lower to higher circuits in their efforts to attain
higher levels of divinity realization and enlarged appreciation of
supreme meanings, ultimate values, and absolute reality.

5. Life in Havona

(158.4)14:5.1 On Urantia
you pass through a short and intense test during your initial life of
material existence. On the mansion worlds and up through your system,
constellation, and local universe, you traverse the morontia phases of
ascension. On the training worlds of the superuniverse you pass through
the true spirit stages of progression and are prepared for eventual
transit to Havona. On the seven circuits of Havona your attainment is
intellectual, spiritual, and experiential. And there is a definite task
to be achieved on each of the worlds of each of these circuits.(158.5)14:5.2 Life on the
divine worlds of the central universe is so rich and full, so complete
and replete, that it wholly transcends the human concept of anything a
created being could possibly experience. The social and economic
activities of this eternal creation are entirely dissimilar to the
occupations of material creatures living on evolutionary worlds like
Urantia. Even the technique of Havona thought is unlike the process of
thinking on Urantia.(158.6)14:5.3 The
regulations of the central universe are fittingly and inherently
natural; the rules of conduct are not arbitrary. In every requirement of
Havona there is disclosed the reason of righteousness and the rule of
justice. And these two factors, combined, equal what on Urantia would be
denominated fairness. When you arrive in Havona, you will naturally enjoy doing things the way they should be done.(158.7)14:5.4 When
intelligent beings first attain the central universe, they are received
and domiciled on the pilot world of the seventh Havona circuit. As the
new arrivals progress spiritually, attain identity comprehension of
their superuniverse Master Spirit, they are transferred to the sixth
circle. (It is from these arrangements in the central universe that the
circles of progress in the human mind have been designated.) After
ascenders have attained a realization of Supremacy and are thereby
prepared for the Deity adventure, they are taken to the fifth circuit;
and after attaining the Infinite Spirit, they are transferred to the
fourth. Following the attainment of the Eternal Son, they are removed to
the third; and when they have recognized the Universal Father, they go
to sojourn on the second circuit of worlds, where they become more
familiar with the Paradise hosts. Arrival on the first circuit of Havona
signifies the acceptance of the candidates of time into the service of
Paradise. Indefinitely, according to the length and nature of the
creature ascension, they will tarry on the inner circuit of progressive
spiritual attainment. From this inner circuit the ascending pilgrims
pass inward to Paradise residence and admission to the Corps of the
Finality.(159.1)14:5.5 During your
sojourn in Havona as a pilgrim of ascent, you will be allowed to visit
freely among the worlds of the circuit of your assignment. You will also
be permitted to go back to the planets of those circuits you have
previously traversed. And all this is possible to those who sojourn on
the circles of Havona without the necessity of being ensupernaphimed.
The pilgrims of time are able to equip themselves to traverse “achieved”
space but must depend on the ordained technique to negotiate
“unachieved” space; a pilgrim cannot leave Havona nor go forward beyond
his assigned circuit without the aid of a transport supernaphim.(159.2)14:5.6 There is a
refreshing originality about this vast central creation. Aside from the
physical organization of matter and the fundamental constitution of the
basic orders of intelligent beings and other living things, there is
nothing in common between the worlds of Havona. Every one of these
planets is an original, unique, and exclusive creation; each planet is a
matchless, superb, and perfect production. And this diversity of
individuality extends to all features of the physical, intellectual, and
spiritual aspects of planetary existence. Each of these billion
perfection spheres has been developed and embellished in accordance with
the plans of the resident Eternal of Days. And this is just why no two
of them are alike.(159.3)14:5.7 Not until
you traverse the last of the Havona circuits and visit the last of the
Havona worlds, will the tonic of adventure and the stimulus of curiosity
disappear from your career. And then will the urge, the forward impulse
of eternity, replace its forerunner, the adventure lure of time.(159.4)14:5.8 Monotony is
indicative of immaturity of the creative imagination and inactivity of
intellectual co-ordination with the spiritual endowment. By the time an
ascendant mortal begins the exploration of these heavenly worlds, he has
already attained emotional, intellectual, and social, if not spiritual,
maturity.(159.5)14:5.9 Not only
will you find undreamed-of changes confronting you as you advance from
circuit to circuit in Havona, but your astonishment will be
inexpressible as you progress from planet to planet within each circuit.
Each of these billion study worlds is a veritable university of
surprises. Continuing astonishment, unending wonder, is the experience
of those who traverse these circuits and tour these gigantic spheres.
Monotony is not a part of the Havona career.(159.6)14:5.10 Love of
adventure, curiosity, and dread of monotony — these traits inherent in
evolving human nature — were not put there just to aggravate and annoy
you during your short sojourn on earth, but rather to suggest to you
that death is only the beginning of an endless career of adventure, an
everlasting life of anticipation, an eternal voyage of discovery.(160.1)14:5.11 Curiosity
— the spirit of investigation, the urge of discovery, the drive of
exploration — is a part of the inborn and divine endowment of
evolutionary space creatures. These natural impulses were not given you
merely to be frustrated and repressed. True, these ambitious urges must
frequently be restrained during your short life on earth, disappointment
must be often experienced, but they are to be fully realized and
gloriously gratified during the long ages to come.

6. The Purpose of the Central Universe

(160.2)14:6.1 The range of the activities of seven-circuited Havona is enormous. In general, they may be described as:

(160.6)14:6.5 Many
superfinite activities take place in the Havona of the present universe
age, involving untold diversities of absonite and other phases of mind
and spirit functions. It is possible that the central universe serves
many purposes which are not revealed to me, as it functions in numerous
ways beyond the comprehension of the created mind. Nevertheless, I will
endeavor to depict how this perfect creation ministers to the needs and
contributes to the satisfactions of seven orders of universe
intelligence.(160.7)14:6.6 1. The Universal Father —
the First Source and Center. God the Father derives supreme parental
satisfaction from the perfection of the central creation. He enjoys the
experience of love satiety on near-equality levels. The perfect Creator
is divinely pleased with the adoration of the perfect creature.(160.8)14:6.7 Havona
affords the Father supreme achievement gratification. The perfection
realization in Havona compensates for the time-space delay of the
eternal urge of infinite expansion.(160.9)14:6.8 The Father
enjoys the Havona reciprocation of the divine beauty. It satisfies the
divine mind to afford a perfect pattern of exquisite harmony for all
evolving universes.(160.10)14:6.9 Our Father
beholds the central universe with perfect pleasure because it is a
worthy revelation of spirit reality to all personalities of the universe
of universes.(160.11)14:6.10 The God
of universes has favorable regard for Havona and Paradise as the eternal
power nucleus for all subsequent universe expansion in time and space.(160.12)14:6.11 The
eternal Father views with never-ending satisfaction the Havona creation
as the worthy and alluring goal for the ascension candidates of time,
his mortal grandchildren of space achieving their Creator-Father’s
eternal home. And God takes pleasure in the Paradise-Havona universe as
the eternal home of Deity and the divine family.(160.13)14:6.12 2. The Eternal Son —
the Second Source and Center. To the Eternal Son the superb central
creation affords eternal proof of the partnership effectiveness of the
divine family — Father, Son, and Spirit. It is the spiritual and
material basis for absolute confidence in the Universal Father.(160.14)14:6.13 Havona
affords the Eternal Son an almost unlimited base for the ever-expanding
realization of spirit power. The central universe afforded the Eternal
Son the arena wherein he could safely and securely demonstrate the
spirit and technique of the bestowal ministry for the instruction of his
associate Paradise Sons.(161.1)14:6.14 Havona is
the reality foundation for the Eternal Son’s spirit-gravity control of
the universe of universes. This universe affords the Son the
gratification of parental craving, spiritual reproduction.(161.2)14:6.15 The
Havona worlds and their perfect inhabitants are the first and the
eternally final demonstration that the Son is the Word of the Father.
Thereby is the consciousness of the Son as an infinite complement of the
Father perfectly gratified.(161.3)14:6.16 And this
universe affords the opportunity for the realization of reciprocation of
equality fraternity between the Universal Father and the Eternal Son,
and this constitutes the everlasting proof of the infinite personality
of each.(161.4)14:6.17 3. The Infinite Spirit —
the Third Source and Center. The Havona universe affords the Infinite
Spirit proof of being the Conjoint Actor, the infinite representative of
the unified Father-Son. In Havona the Infinite Spirit derives the
combined satisfaction of functioning as a creative activity while
enjoying the satisfaction of absolute coexistence with this divine
achievement.(161.5)14:6.18 In Havona
the Infinite Spirit found an arena wherein he could demonstrate the
ability and willingness to serve as a potential mercy minister. In this
perfect creation the Spirit rehearsed for the adventure of ministry in
the evolutionary universes.(161.6)14:6.19 This
perfect creation afforded the Infinite Spirit opportunity to participate
in universe administration with both divine parents — to administer a
universe as associate-Creator offspring, thereby preparing for the joint
administration of the local universes as the Creative Spirit associates
of the Creator Sons.(161.7)14:6.20 The
Havona worlds are the mind laboratory of the creators of the cosmic mind
and the ministers to every creature mind in existence. Mind is
different on each Havona world and serves as the pattern for all
spiritual and material creature intellects.(161.8)14:6.21 These
perfect worlds are the mind graduate schools for all beings destined for
Paradise society. They afforded the Spirit abundant opportunity to test
out the technique of mind ministry on safe and advisory personalities.(161.9)14:6.22 Havona is
a compensation to the Infinite Spirit for his widespread and unselfish
work in the universes of space. Havona is the perfect home and retreat
for the untiring Mind Minister of time and space.(161.10)14:6.23 4. The Supreme Being —
the evolutionary unification of experiential Deity. The Havona creation
is the eternal and perfect proof of the spiritual reality of the
Supreme Being. This perfect creation is a revelation of the perfect and
symmetrical spirit nature of God the Supreme before the beginnings of
the power-personality synthesis of the finite reflections of the
Paradise Deities in the experiential universes of time and space.(161.11)14:6.24 In
Havona the power potentials of the Almighty are unified with the
spiritual nature of the Supreme. This central creation is an
exemplification of the future-eternal unity of the Supreme.(161.12)14:6.25 Havona
is a perfect pattern of the universality potential of the Supreme. This
universe is a finished portrayal of the future perfection of the Supreme
and is suggestive of the potential of the Ultimate.(162.1)14:6.26 Havona
exhibits finality of spirit values existing as living will creatures of
supreme and perfect self-control; mind existing as ultimately equivalent
to spirit; reality and unity of intelligence with an unlimited
potential.(162.2)14:6.27 5. The Co-ordinate Creator Sons.
Havona is the educational training ground where the Paradise Michaels
are prepared for their subsequent adventures in universe creation. This
divine and perfect creation is a pattern for every Creator Son. He
strives to make his own universe eventually attain to these
Paradise-Havona levels of perfection.(162.3)14:6.28 A Creator
Son uses the creatures of Havona as personality-pattern possibilities
for his own mortal children and spirit beings. The Michael and other
Paradise Sons view Paradise and Havona as the divine destiny of the
children of time.(162.4)14:6.29 The
Creator Sons know that the central creation is the real source of that
indispensable universe overcontrol which stabilizes and unifies their
local universes. They know that the personal presence of the
ever-present influence of the Supreme and of the Ultimate is in Havona.(162.5)14:6.30 Havona
and Paradise are the source of a Michael Son’s creative power. Here
dwell the beings who co-operate with him in universe creation. From
Paradise come the Universe Mother Spirits, the cocreators of local
universes.(162.6)14:6.31 The
Paradise Sons regard the central creation as the home of their divine
parents — their home. It is the place they enjoy returning to ever and
anon.(162.7)14:6.32 6. The Co-ordinate Ministering Daughters.
The Universe Mother Spirits, cocreators of the local universes, secure
their prepersonal training on the worlds of Havona in close association
with the Spirits of the Circuits. In the central universe the Spirit
Daughters of the local universes were duly trained in the methods of
co-operation with the Sons of Paradise, all the while subject to the
will of the Father.(162.8)14:6.33 On the
worlds of Havona the Spirit and the Daughters of the Spirit find the
mind patterns for all their groups of spiritual and material
intelligences, and this central universe is the sometime destiny of
those creatures which a Universe Mother Spirit jointly sponsors with an
associated Creator Son.(162.9)14:6.34 The
Universe Mother Creator remembers Paradise and Havona as the place of
her origin and the home of the Infinite Mother Spirit, the abode of the
personality presence of the Infinite Mind.(162.10)14:6.35 From
this central universe also came the bestowal of the personal
prerogatives of creatorship which a Universe Divine Minister employs as
complemental to a Creator Son in the work of creating living will
creatures.(162.11)14:6.36 And
lastly, since these Daughter Spirits of the Infinite Mother Spirit will
not likely ever return to their Paradise home, they derive great
satisfaction from the universal reflectivity phenomenon associated with
the Supreme Being in Havona and personalized in Majeston on Paradise.(162.12)14:6.37 7. The Evolutionary Mortals of the Ascending Career.
Havona is the home of the pattern personality of every mortal type and
the home of all superhuman personalities of mortal association who are
not native to the creations of time.(162.13)14:6.38 These
worlds provide the stimulus of all human impulses towards the attainment
of true spirit values on the highest conceivable reality levels. Havona
is the pre-Paradise training goal of every ascending mortal. Here
mortals attain pre-Paradise Deity — the Supreme Being. Havona stands
before every will creature as the portal to Paradise and God attainment.(163.1)14:6.39 Paradise
is the home, and Havona the workshop and playground, of the finaliters.
And every God-knowing mortal craves to be a finaliter.(163.2)14:6.40 The
central universe is not only man’s established destiny, but it is also
the starting place of the eternal career of the finaliters as they shall
sometime be started out on the undisclosed and universal adventure in
the experience of exploring the infinity of the Universal Father.(163.3)14:6.41 Havona
will unquestionably continue to function with absonite significance even
in future universe ages which may witness space pilgrims attempting to
find God on superfinite levels. Havona has capacity to serve as a
training universe for absonite beings. It will probably be the finishing
school when the seven superuniverses are functioning as the
intermediate school for the graduates of the primary schools of outer
space. And we incline to the opinion that the potentials of eternal
Havona are really unlimited, that the central universe has eternal
capacity to serve as an experiential training universe for all past,
present, or future types of created beings.(163.4)14:6.42 [Presented by a Perfector of Wisdom commissioned thus to function by the Ancients of Days on Uversa.]

The Urantia Book

Paper 15

The Seven Superuniverses

(164.1)15:0.1 AS FAR as
the Universal Father is concerned — as a Father — the universes are
virtually nonexistent; he deals with personalities; he is the Father of
personalities. As far as the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit are
concerned — as creator partners — the universes are localized and
individual under the joint rule of the Creator Sons and the Creative
Spirits. As far as the Paradise Trinity is concerned, outside Havona
there are just seven inhabited universes, the seven superuniverses which
hold jurisdiction over the circle of the first post-Havona space level.
The Seven Master Spirits radiate their influence out from the central
Isle, thus constituting the vast creation one gigantic wheel, the hub
being the eternal Isle of Paradise, the seven spokes the radiations of
the Seven Master Spirits, the rim the outer regions of the grand
universe.(164.2)15:0.2 Early in
the materialization of the universal creation the sevenfold scheme of
the superuniverse organization and government was formulated. The first
post-Havona creation was divided into seven stupendous segments, and the
headquarters worlds of these superuniverse governments were designed
and constructed. The present scheme of administration has existed from
near eternity, and the rulers of these seven superuniverses are rightly
called Ancients of Days.(164.3)15:0.3 Of the vast
body of knowledge concerning the superuniverses, I can hope to tell you
little, but there is operative throughout these realms a technique of
intelligent control for both physical and spiritual forces, and the
universal gravity presences there function in majestic power and perfect
harmony. It is important first to gain an adequate idea of the physical
constitution and material organization of the superuniverse domains,
for then you will be the better prepared to grasp the significance of
the marvelous organization provided for their spiritual government and
for the intellectual advancement of the will creatures who dwell on the
myriads of inhabited planets scattered hither and yon throughout these
seven superuniverses.

1. The Superuniverse Space Level

(164.4)15:1.1 Within the
limited range of the records, observations, and memories of the
generations of a million or a billion of your short years, to all
practical intents and purposes, Urantia and the universe to which it
belongs are experiencing the adventure of one long and uncharted plunge
into new space; but according to the records of Uversa, in accordance
with older observations, in harmony with the more extensive experience
and calculations of our order, and as a result of conclusions based on
these and other findings, we know that the universes are engaged in an
orderly, well-understood, and perfectly controlled processional,
swinging in majestic grandeur around the First Great Source and Center
and his residential universe.(165.1)15:1.2 We have
long since discovered that the seven superuniverses traverse a great
ellipse, a gigantic and elongated circle. Your solar system and other
worlds of time are not plunging headlong, without chart and compass,
into unmapped space. The local universe to which your system belongs is
pursuing a definite and well-understood counterclockwise course around
the vast swing that encircles the central universe. This cosmic path is
well charted and is just as thoroughly known to the superuniverse star
observers as the orbits of the planets constituting your solar system
are known to Urantia astronomers.(165.2)15:1.3 Urantia is
situated in a local universe and a superuniverse not fully organized,
and your local universe is in immediate proximity to numerous partially
completed physical creations. You belong to one of the relatively recent
universes. But you are not, today, plunging on wildly into uncharted
space nor swinging out blindly into unknown regions. You are following
the orderly and predetermined path of the superuniverse space level. You
are now passing through the very same space that your planetary system,
or its predecessors, traversed ages ago; and some day in the remote
future your system, or its successors, will again traverse the identical
space through which you are now so swiftly plunging.(165.3)15:1.4 In this age
and as direction is regarded on Urantia, superuniverse number one
swings almost due north, approximately opposite, in an easterly
direction, to the Paradise residence of the Great Sources and Centers
and the central universe of Havona. This position, with the
corresponding one to the west, represents the nearest physical approach
of the spheres of time to the eternal Isle. Superuniverse number two is
in the north, preparing for the westward swing, while number three now
holds the northernmost segment of the great space path, having already
turned into the bend leading to the southerly plunge. Number four is on
the comparatively straightaway southerly flight, the advance regions now
approaching opposition to the Great Centers. Number five has about left
its position opposite the Center of Centers while continuing on the
direct southerly course just preceding the eastward swing; number six
occupies most of the southern curve, the segment from which your
superuniverse has nearly passed.(165.4)15:1.5 Your local
universe of Nebadon belongs to Orvonton, the seventh superuniverse,
which swings on between superuniverses one and six, having not long
since (as we reckon time) turned the southeastern bend of the
superuniverse space level. Today, the solar system to which Urantia
belongs is a few billion years past the swing around the southern
curvature so that you are just now advancing beyond the southeastern
bend and are moving swiftly through the long and comparatively
straightaway northern path. For untold ages Orvonton will pursue this
almost direct northerly course.(165.5)15:1.6 Urantia
belongs to a system which is well out towards the borderland of your
local universe; and your local universe is at present traversing the
periphery of Orvonton. Beyond you there are still others, but you are
far removed in space from those physical systems which swing around the
great circle in comparative proximity to the Great Source and Center.

2. Organization of the Superuniverses

(165.6)15:2.1 Only the
Universal Father knows the location and actual number of inhabited
worlds in space; he calls them all by name and number. I can give only
the approximate number of inhabited or inhabitable planets, for some
local universes have more worlds suitable for intelligent life than
others. Nor have all projected local universes been organized. Therefore
the estimates which I offer are solely for the purpose of affording
some idea of the immensity of the material creation.(166.1)15:2.2 There are seven superuniverses in the grand universe, and they are constituted approximately as follows:

(166.2)15:2.3 1. The System.
The basic unit of the supergovernment consists of about one thousand
inhabited or inhabitable worlds. Blazing suns, cold worlds, planets too
near the hot suns, and other spheres not suitable for creature
habitation are not included in this group. These one thousand worlds
adapted to support life are called a system, but in the younger systems
only a comparatively small number of these worlds may be inhabited. Each
inhabited planet is presided over by a Planetary Prince, and each local
system has an architectural sphere as its headquarters and is ruled by a
System Sovereign.(166.3)15:2.4 2. The Constellation.
One hundred systems (about 100,000 inhabitable planets) make up a
constellation. Each constellation has an architectural headquarters
sphere and is presided over by three Vorondadek Sons, the Most Highs.
Each constellation also has a Faithful of Days in observation, an
ambassador of the Paradise Trinity.(166.4)15:2.5 3. The Local Universe.
One hundred constellations (about 10,000,000 inhabitable planets)
constitute a local universe. Each local universe has a magnificent
architectural headquarters world and is ruled by one of the co-ordinate
Creator Sons of God of the order of Michael. Each universe is blessed by
the presence of a Union of Days, a representative of the Paradise
Trinity.(166.5)15:2.6 4. The Minor Sector.
One hundred local universes (about 1,000,000,000 inhabitable planets)
constitute a minor sector of the superuniverse government; it has a
wonderful headquarters world, wherefrom its rulers, the Recents of Days,
administer the affairs of the minor sector. There are three Recents of
Days, Supreme Trinity Personalities, on each minor sector headquarters.(166.6)15:2.7 5. The Major Sector.
One hundred minor sectors (about 100,000,000,000 inhabitable worlds)
make one major sector. Each major sector is provided with a superb
headquarters and is presided over by three Perfections of Days, Supreme
Trinity Personalities.(166.7)15:2.8 6. The Superuniverse.
Ten major sectors (about 1,000,000,000,000 inhabitable planets)
constitute a superuniverse. Each superuniverse is provided with an
enormous and glorious headquarters world and is ruled by three Ancients
of Days.(166.8)15:2.9 7. The Grand Universe.
Seven superuniverses make up the present organized grand universe,
consisting of approximately seven trillion inhabitable worlds plus the
architectural spheres and the one billion inhabited spheres of Havona.
The superuniverses are ruled and administered indirectly and
reflectively from Paradise by the Seven Master Spirits. The billion
worlds of Havona are directly administered by the Eternals of Days, one
such Supreme Trinity Personality presiding over each of these perfect
spheres.

(167.1)15:2.10 Excluding the Paradise-Havona spheres, the plan of universe organization provides for the following units:

(167.16)15:2.25 All such
estimates are approximations at best, for new systems are constantly
evolving while other organizations are temporarily passing out of
material existence.

3. The Superuniverse of Orvonton

(167.17)15:3.1
Practically all of the starry realms visible to the naked eye on Urantia
belong to the seventh section of the grand universe, the superuniverse
of Orvonton. The vast Milky Way starry system represents the central
nucleus of Orvonton, being largely beyond the borders of your local
universe. This great aggregation of suns, dark islands of space, double
stars, globular clusters, star clouds, spiral and other nebulae,
together with myriads of individual planets, forms a watchlike,
elongated-circular grouping of about one seventh of the inhabited
evolutionary universes.(167.18)15:3.2 From the
astronomical position of Urantia, as you look through the cross section
of near-by systems to the great Milky Way, you observe that the spheres
of Orvonton are traveling in a vast elongated plane, the breadth being
far greater than the thickness and the length far greater than the
breadth.(167.19)15:3.3
Observation of the so-called Milky Way discloses the comparative
increase in Orvonton stellar density when the heavens are viewed in one
direction, while on either side the density diminishes; the number of
stars and other spheres decreases away from the chief plane of our
material superuniverse. When the angle of observation is propitious,
gazing through the main body of this realm of maximum density, you are
looking toward the residential universe and the center of all things.(167.20)15:3.4 Of the ten
major divisions of Orvonton, eight have been roughly identified by
Urantian astronomers. The other two are difficult of separate
recognition because you are obliged to view these phenomena from the
inside. If you could look upon the superuniverse of Orvonton from a
position far-distant in space, you would immediately recognize the ten
major sectors of the seventh galaxy.(168.1)15:3.5 The
rotational center of your minor sector is situated far away in the
enormous and dense star cloud of Sagittarius, around which your local
universe and its associated creations all move, and from opposite sides
of the vast Sagittarius subgalactic system you may observe two great
streams of star clouds emerging in stupendous stellar coils.(168.2)15:3.6 The nucleus
of the physical system to which your sun and its associated planets
belong is the center of the onetime Andronover nebula. This former
spiral nebula was slightly distorted by the gravity disruptions
associated with the events which were attendant upon the birth of your
solar system, and which were occasioned by the near approach of a large
neighboring nebula. This near collision changed Andronover into a
somewhat globular aggregation but did not wholly destroy the two-way
procession of the suns and their associated physical groups. Your solar
system now occupies a fairly central position in one of the arms of this
distorted spiral, situated about halfway from the center out towards
the edge of the star stream.(168.3)15:3.7 The
Sagittarius sector and all other sectors and divisions of Orvonton are
in rotation around Uversa, and some of the confusion of Urantian star
observers arises out of the illusions and relative distortions produced
by the following multiple revolutionary movements:

(168.4)15:3.8 1. The revolution of Urantia around its sun.(168.5)15:3.9 2. The circuit of your solar system about the nucleus of the former Andronover nebula.(168.6)15:3.10 3. The
rotation of the Andronover stellar family and the associated clusters
about the composite rotation-gravity center of the star cloud of
Nebadon.(168.7)15:3.11 4. The
swing of the local star cloud of Nebadon and its associated creations
around the Sagittarius center of their minor sector.(168.8)15:3.12 5. The rotation of the one hundred minor sectors, including Sagittarius, about their major sector.(168.9)15:3.13 6. The whirl of the ten major sectors, the so-called star drifts, about the Uversa headquarters of Orvonton.(168.10)15:3.14 7. The
movement of Orvonton and six associated superuniverses around Paradise
and Havona, the counterclockwise processional of the superuniverse space
level.

(168.11)15:3.15 These
multiple motions are of several orders: The space paths of your planet
and your solar system are genetic, inherent in origin. The absolute
counterclockwise motion of Orvonton is also genetic, inherent in the
architectural plans of the master universe. But the intervening motions
are of composite origin, being derived in part from the constitutive
segmentation of matter-energy into the superuniverses and in part
produced by the intelligent and purposeful action of the Paradise force
organizers.(168.12)15:3.16 The
local universes are in closer proximity as they approach Havona; the
circuits are greater in number, and there is increased superimposition,
layer upon layer. But farther out from the eternal center there are
fewer and fewer systems, layers, circuits, and universes.

4. Nebulae — The Ancestors of Universes

(169.1)15:4.1 While
creation and universe organization remain forever under the control of
the infinite Creators and their associates, the whole phenomenon
proceeds in accordance with an ordained technique and in conformity to
the gravity laws of force, energy, and matter. But there is something of
mystery associated with the universal force-charge of space; we quite
understand the organization of the material creations from the
ultimatonic stage forward, but we do not fully comprehend the cosmic
ancestry of the ultimatons. We are confident that these ancestral forces
have a Paradise origin because they forever swing through pervaded
space in the exact gigantic outlines of Paradise. Though nonresponsive
to Paradise gravity, this force-charge of space, the ancestor of all
materialization, does always respond to the presence of nether Paradise,
being apparently circuited in and out of the nether Paradise center.(169.2)15:4.2 The
Paradise force organizers transmute space potency into primordial force
and evolve this prematerial potential into the primary and secondary
energy manifestations of physical reality. When this energy attains
gravity-responding levels, the power directors and their associates of
the superuniverse regime appear upon the scene and begin their
never-ending manipulations designed to establish the manifold power
circuits and energy channels of the universes of time and space. Thus
does physical matter appear in space, and so is the stage set for the
inauguration of universe organization.(169.3)15:4.3 This
segmentation of energy is a phenomenon which has never been solved by
the physicists of Nebadon. Their chief difficulty lies in the relative
inaccessibility of the Paradise force organizers, for the living power
directors, though they are competent to deal with space-energy, do not
have the least conception of the origin of the energies they so
skillfully and intelligently manipulate.(169.4)15:4.4 Paradise
force organizers are nebulae originators; they are able to initiate
about their space presence the tremendous cyclones of force which, when
once started, can never be stopped or limited until the all-pervading
forces are mobilized for the eventual appearance of the ultimatonic
units of universe matter. Thus are brought into being the spiral and
other nebulae, the mother wheels of the direct-origin suns and their
varied systems. In outer space there may be seen ten different forms of
nebulae, phases of primary universe evolution, and these vast energy
wheels had the same origin as did those in the seven superuniverses.(169.5)15:4.5 Nebulae
vary greatly in size and in the resulting number and aggregate mass of
their stellar and planetary offspring. A sun-forming nebula just north
of the borders of Orvonton, but within the superuniverse space level,
has already given origin to approximately forty thousand suns, and the
mother wheel is still throwing off suns, the majority of which are many
times the size of yours. Some of the larger nebulae of outer space are
giving origin to as many as one hundred million suns.(169.6)15:4.6 Nebulae are
not directly related to any of the administrative units, such as minor
sectors or local universes, although some local universes have been
organized from the products of a single nebula. Each local universe
embraces exactly one one-hundred-thousandth part of the total energy
charge of a superuniverse irrespective of nebular relationship, for
energy is not organized by nebulae — it is universally distributed.(170.1)15:4.7 Not all
spiral nebulae are engaged in sun making. Some have retained control of
many of their segregated stellar offspring, and their spiral appearance
is occasioned by the fact that their suns pass out of the nebular arm in
close formation but return by diverse routes, thus making it easy to
observe them at one point but more difficult to see them when widely
scattered on their different returning routes farther out and away from
the arm of the nebula. There are not many sun-forming nebulae active in
Orvonton at the present time, though Andromeda, which is outside the
inhabited superuniverse, is very active. This far-distant nebula is
visible to the naked eye, and when you view it, pause to consider that
the light you behold left those distant suns almost one million years
ago.(170.2)15:4.8 The Milky
Way galaxy is composed of vast numbers of former spiral and other
nebulae, and many still retain their original configuration. But as the
result of internal catastrophes and external attraction, many have
suffered such distortion and rearrangement as to cause these enormous
aggregations to appear as gigantic luminous masses of blazing suns, like
the Magellanic Cloud. The globular type of star clusters predominates
near the outer margins of Orvonton.(170.3)15:4.9 The vast
star clouds of Orvonton should be regarded as individual aggregations of
matter comparable to the separate nebulae observable in the space
regions external to the Milky Way galaxy. Many of the so-called star
clouds of space, however, consist of gaseous material only. The energy
potential of these stellar gas clouds is unbelievably enormous, and some
of it is taken up by near-by suns and redispatched in space as solar
emanations.

5. The Origin of Space Bodies

(170.4)15:5.1 The bulk of
the mass contained in the suns and planets of a superuniverse
originates in the nebular wheels; very little of superuniverse mass is
organized by the direct action of the power directors (as in the
construction of architectural spheres), although a constantly varying
quantity of matter originates in open space.(170.5)15:5.2 As to origin, the majority of the suns, planets, and other spheres can be classified in one of the following ten groups:

(170.6)15:5.3 1. Concentric Contraction Rings.
Not all nebulae are spiral. Many an immense nebula, instead of
splitting into a double star system or evolving as a spiral, undergoes
condensation by multiple-ring formation. For long periods such a nebula
appears as an enormous central sun surrounded by numerous gigantic
clouds of encircling, ring-appearing formations of matter.(170.7)15:5.4 2. The Whirled Stars
embrace those suns which are thrown off the great mother wheels of
highly heated gases. They are not thrown off as rings but in right- and
left-handed processions. Whirled stars are also of origin in
other-than-spiral nebulae.(170.8)15:5.5 3. Gravity-explosion Planets.
When a sun is born of a spiral or of a barred nebula, not infrequently
it is thrown out a considerable distance. Such a sun is highly gaseous,
and subsequently, after it has somewhat cooled and condensed, it may
chance to swing near some enormous mass of matter, a gigantic sun or a
dark island of space. Such an approach may not be near enough to result
in collision but still near enough to allow the gravity pull of the
greater body to start tidal convulsions in the lesser, thus initiating a
series of tidal upheavals which occur simultaneously on opposite sides
of the convulsed sun. At their height these explosive eruptions produce a
series of varying-sized aggregations of matter which may be projected
beyond the gravity-reclamation zone of the erupting sun, thus becoming
stabilized in orbits of their own around one of the two bodies concerned
in this episode. Later on the larger collections of matter unite and
gradually draw the smaller bodies to themselves. In this way many of the
solid planets of the lesser systems are brought into existence. Your
own solar system had just such an origin.(171.1)15:5.6 4. Centrifugal Planetary Daughters.
Enormous suns, when in certain stages of development, and if their
revolutionary rate greatly accelerates, begin to throw off large
quantities of matter which may subsequently be assembled to form small
worlds that continue to encircle the parent sun.(171.2)15:5.7 5. Gravity-deficiency Spheres.
There is a critical limit to the size of individual stars. When a sun
reaches this limit, unless it slows down in revolutionary rate, it is
doomed to split; sun fission occurs, and a new double star of this
variety is born. Numerous small planets may be subsequently formed as a
by-product of this gigantic disruption.(171.3)15:5.8 6. Contractural Stars.
In the smaller systems the largest outer planet sometimes draws to
itself its neighboring worlds, while those planets near the sun begin
their terminal plunge. With your solar system, such an end would mean
that the four inner planets would be claimed by the sun, while the major
planet, Jupiter, would be greatly enlarged by capturing the remaining
worlds. Such an end of a solar system would result in the production of
two adjacent but unequal suns, one type of double star formation. Such
catastrophes are infrequent except out on the fringe of the
superuniverse starry aggregations.(171.4)15:5.9 7. Cumulative Spheres.
From the vast quantity of matter circulating in space, small planets
may slowly accumulate. They grow by meteoric accretion and by minor
collisions. In certain sectors of space, conditions favor such forms of
planetary birth. Many an inhabited world has had such an origin.(171.5)15:5.10 Some of
the dense dark islands are the direct result of the accretions of
transmuting energy in space. Another group of these dark islands have
come into being by the accumulation of enormous quantities of cold
matter, mere fragments and meteors, circulating through space. Such
aggregations of matter have never been hot and, except for density, are
in composition very similar to Urantia.(171.6)15:5.11 8. Burned-out Suns.
Some of the dark islands of space are burned-out isolated suns, all
available space-energy having been emitted. The organized units of
matter approximate full condensation, virtual complete consolidation;
and it requires ages upon ages for such enormous masses of highly
condensed matter to be recharged in the circuits of space and thus to be
prepared for new cycles of universe function following a collision or
some equally revivifying cosmic happening.(171.7)15:5.12 9. Collisional Spheres.
In those regions of thicker clustering, collisions are not uncommon.
Such an astronomic readjustment is accompanied by tremendous energy
changes and matter transmutations. Collisions involving dead suns are
peculiarly influential in creating widespread energy fluctuations.
Collisional debris often constitutes the material nucleuses for the
subsequent formation of planetary bodies adapted to mortal habitation.(172.1)15:5.13 10. Architectural Worlds.
These are the worlds which are built according to plans and
specifications for some special purpose, such as Salvington, the
headquarters of your local universe, and Uversa, the seat of government
of our superuniverse.

(172.2)15:5.14 There are
numerous other techniques for evolving suns and segregating planets,
but the foregoing procedures suggest the methods whereby the vast
majority of stellar systems and planetary families are brought into
existence. To undertake to describe all the various techniques involved
in stellar metamorphosis and planetary evolution would require the
narration of almost one hundred different modes of sun formation and
planetary origin. As your star students scan the heavens, they will
observe phenomena indicative of all these modes of stellar evolution,
but they will seldom detect evidence of the formation of those small,
nonluminous collections of matter which serve as inhabited planets, the
most important of the vast material creations.

6. The Spheres of Space

(172.3)15:6.1 Irrespective of origin, the various spheres of space are classifiable into the following major divisions:

(172.9)15:6.7 With the
exception of the architectural spheres, all space bodies have had an
evolutionary origin, evolutionary in the sense that they have not been
brought into being by fiat of Deity, evolutionary in the sense that the
creative acts of God have unfolded by a time-space technique through the
operation of many of the created and eventuated intelligences of Deity.(172.10)15:6.8The Suns.
These are the stars of space in all their various stages of existence.
Some are solitary evolving space systems; others are double stars,
contracting or disappearing planetary systems. The stars of space exist
in no less than a thousand different states and stages. You are familiar
with suns that emit light accompanied by heat; but there are also suns
which shine without heat.(172.11)15:6.9 The
trillions upon trillions of years that an ordinary sun will continue to
give out heat and light well illustrates the vast store of energy which
each unit of matter contains. The actual energy stored in these
invisible particles of physical matter is well-nigh unimaginable. And
this energy becomes almost wholly available as light when subjected to
the tremendous heat pressure and the associated energy activities which
prevail in the interior of the blazing suns. Still other conditions
enable these suns to transform and send forth much of the energy of
space which comes their way in the established space circuits. Many
phases of physical energy and all forms of matter are attracted to, and
subsequently distributed by, the solar dynamos. In this way the suns
serve as local accelerators of energy circulation, acting as automatic
power-control stations.(172.12)15:6.10 The
superuniverse of Orvonton is illuminated and warmed by more than ten
trillion blazing suns. These suns are the stars of your observable
astronomic system. More than two trillion are too distant and too small
ever to be seen from Urantia. But in the master universe there are as
many suns as there are glasses of water in the oceans of your world.(173.1)15:6.11The Dark Islands of Space.
These are the dead suns and other large aggregations of matter devoid
of light and heat. The dark islands are sometimes enormous in mass and
exert a powerful influence in universe equilibrium and energy
manipulation. The density of some of these large masses is well-nigh
unbelievable. And this great concentration of mass enables these dark
islands to function as powerful balance wheels, holding large
neighboring systems in effective leash. They hold the gravity balance of
power in many constellations; many physical systems which would
otherwise speedily dive to destruction in near-by suns are held securely
in the gravity grasp of these guardian dark islands. It is because of
this function that we can locate them accurately. We have measured the
gravity pull of the luminous bodies, and we can therefore calculate the
exact size and location of the dark islands of space which so
effectively function to hold a given system steady in its course.(173.2)15:6.12Minor Space Bodies.
The meteors and other small particles of matter circulating and
evolving in space constitute an enormous aggregate of energy and
material substance.(173.3)15:6.13 Many
comets are unestablished wild offspring of the solar mother wheels,
which are being gradually brought under control of the central governing
sun. Comets also have numerous other origins. A comet’s tail points
away from the attracting body or sun because of the electrical reaction
of its highly expanded gases and because of the actual pressure of light
and other energies emanating from the sun. This phenomenon constitutes
one of the positive proofs of the reality of light and its associated
energies; it demonstrates that light has weight. Light is a real
substance, not simply waves of hypothetical ether.(173.4)15:6.14The Planets.
These are the larger aggregations of matter which follow an orbit
around a sun or some other space body; they range in size from
planetesimals to enormous gaseous, liquid, or solid spheres. The cold
worlds which have been built up by the assemblage of floating space
material, when they happen to be in proper relation to a near-by sun,
are the more ideal planets to harbor intelligent inhabitants. The dead
suns are not, as a rule, suited to life; they are usually too far away
from a living, blazing sun, and further, they are altogether too
massive; gravity is tremendous at the surface.(173.5)15:6.15 In your
superuniverse not one cool planet in forty is habitable by beings of
your order. And, of course, the superheated suns and the frigid outlying
worlds are unfit to harbor higher life. In your solar system only three
planets are at present suited to harbor life. Urantia, in size,
density, and location, is in many respects ideal for human habitation.(173.6)15:6.16 The laws
of physical-energy behavior are basically universal, but local
influences have much to do with the physical conditions which prevail on
individual planets and in local systems. An almost endless variety of
creature life and other living manifestations characterizes the
countless worlds of space. There are, however, certain points of
similarity in a group of worlds associated in a given system, while
there also is a universe pattern of intelligent life. There are physical
relationships among those planetary systems which belong to the same
physical circuit, and which closely follow each other in the endless
swing around the circle of universes.

7. The Architectural Spheres

(174.1)15:7.1 While each
superuniverse government presides near the center of the evolutionary
universes of its space segment, it occupies a world made to order and is
peopled by accredited personalities. These headquarters worlds are
architectural spheres, space bodies specifically constructed for their
special purpose. While sharing the light of near-by suns, these spheres
are independently lighted and heated. Each has a sun which gives forth
light without heat, like the satellites of Paradise, while each is
supplied with heat by the circulation of certain energy currents near
the surface of the sphere. These headquarters worlds belong to one of
the greater systems situated near the astronomical center of their
respective superuniverses.(174.2)15:7.2 Time is
standardized on the headquarters of the superuniverses. The standard day
of the superuniverse of Orvonton is equal to almost thirty days of
Urantia time, and the Orvonton year equals one hundred standard days.
This Uversa year is standard in the seventh superuniverse, and it is
twenty-two minutes short of three thousand days of Urantia time, about
eight and one fifth of your years.(174.3)15:7.3 The
headquarters worlds of the seven superuniverses partake of the nature
and grandeur of Paradise, their central pattern of perfection. In
reality, all headquarters worlds are paradisiacal. They are indeed
heavenly abodes, and they increase in material size, morontia beauty,
and spirit glory from Jerusem to the central Isle. And all the
satellites of these headquarters worlds are also architectural spheres.(174.4)15:7.4 The various
headquarters worlds are provided with every phase of material and
spiritual creation. All kinds of material, morontial, and spiritual
beings are at home on these rendezvous worlds of the universes. As
mortal creatures ascend the universe, passing from the material to the
spiritual realms, they never lose their appreciation for, and enjoyment
of, their former levels of existence.(174.5)15:7.5Jerusem,
the headquarters of your local system of Satania, has its seven worlds
of transition culture, each of which is encircled by seven satellites,
among which are the seven mansion worlds of morontia detention, man’s
first postmortal residence. As the term heaven has been used on Urantia,
it has sometimes meant these seven mansion worlds, the first mansion
world being denominated the first heaven, and so on to the seventh.(174.6)15:7.6Edentia,
the headquarters of your constellation of Norlatiadek, has its seventy
satellites of socializing culture and training, on which ascenders
sojourn upon the completion of the Jerusem regime of personality
mobilization, unification, and realization.(174.7)15:7.7Salvington,
the capital of Nebadon, your local universe, is surrounded by ten
university clusters of forty-nine spheres each. Hereon is man
spiritualized following his constellation socialization.(174.8)15:7.8Uminor the third,
the headquarters of your minor sector, Ensa, is surrounded by the seven
spheres of the higher physical studies of the ascendant life.(174.9)15:7.9Umajor the fifth,
the headquarters of your major sector, Splandon, is surrounded by the
seventy spheres of the advancing intellectual training of the
superuniverse.(175.1)15:7.10Uversa,
the headquarters of Orvonton, your superuniverse, is immediately
surrounded by the seven higher universities of advanced spiritual
training for ascending will creatures. Each of these seven clusters of
wonder spheres consists of seventy specialized worlds containing
thousands upon thousands of replete institutions and organizations
devoted to universe training and spirit culture wherein the pilgrims of
time are re-educated and re-examined preparatory to their long flight to
Havona. The arriving pilgrims of time are always received on these
associated worlds, but the departing graduates are always dispatched for
Havona direct from the shores of Uversa.(175.2)15:7.11 Uversa is
the spiritual and administrative headquarters for approximately one
trillion inhabited or inhabitable worlds. The glory, grandeur, and
perfection of the Orvonton capital surpass any of the wonders of the
time-space creations.(175.3)15:7.12 If all
the projected local universes and their component parts were
established, there would be slightly less than five hundred billion
architectural worlds in the seven superuniverses.

8. Energy Control and Regulation

(175.4)15:8.1 The
headquarters spheres of the superuniverses are so constructed that they
are able to function as efficient power-energy regulators for their
various sectors, serving as focal points for the directionization of
energy to their component local universes. They exert a powerful
influence over the balance and control of the physical energies
circulating through organized space.(175.5)15:8.2 Further
regulative functions are performed by the superuniverse power centers
and physical controllers, living and semiliving intelligent entities
constituted for this express purpose. These power centers and
controllers are difficult of understanding; the lower orders are not
volitional, they do not possess will, they do not choose, their
functions are very intelligent but apparently automatic and inherent in
their highly specialized organization. The power centers and physical
controllers of the superuniverses assume direction and partial control
of the thirty energy systems which comprise the gravita domain. The
physical-energy circuits administered by the power centers of Uversa
require a little over 968 million years to complete the encirclement of
the superuniverse.(175.6)15:8.3 Evolving
energy has substance; it has weight, although weight is always relative,
depending on revolutionary velocity, mass, and antigravity. Mass in
matter tends to retard velocity in energy; and the anywhere-present
velocity of energy represents: the initial endowment of velocity, minus
retardation by mass encountered in transit, plus the regulatory function
of the living energy controllers of the superuniverse and the physical
influence of near-by highly heated or heavily charged bodies.(175.7)15:8.4 The
universal plan for the maintenance of equilibrium between matter and
energy necessitates the everlasting making and unmaking of the lesser
material units. The Universe Power Directors have the ability to
condense and detain, or to expand and liberate, varying quantities of
energy.(175.8)15:8.5 Given a
sufficient duration of retarding influence, gravity would eventually
convert all energy into matter were it not for two factors: First,
because of the antigravity influences of the energy controllers, and
second, because organized matter tends to disintegrate under certain
conditions found in very hot stars and under certain peculiar conditions
in space near highly energized cold bodies of condensed matter.(176.1)15:8.6 When mass
becomes overaggregated and threatens to unbalance energy, to deplete the
physical power circuits, the physical controllers intervene unless
gravity’s own further tendency to overmaterialize energy is defeated by
the occurrence of a collision among the dead giants of space, thus in an
instant completely dissipating the cumulative collections of gravity.
In these collisional episodes enormous masses of matter are suddenly
converted into the rarest form of energy, and the struggle for universal
equilibrium is begun anew. Eventually the larger physical systems
become stabilized, become physically settled, and are swung into the
balanced and established circuits of the superuniverses. Subsequent to
this event no more collisions or other devastating catastrophes will
occur in such established systems.(176.2)15:8.7 During the
times of plus energy there are power disturbances and heat fluctuations
accompanied by electrical manifestations. During times of minus energy
there are increased tendencies for matter to aggregate, condense, and to
get out of control in the more delicately balanced circuits, with
resultant tidal or collisional adjustments which quickly restore the
balance between circulating energy and more literally stabilized matter.
To forecast and otherwise to understand such likely behavior of the
blazing suns and the dark islands of space is one of the tasks of the
celestial star observers.(176.3)15:8.8 We are able
to recognize most of the laws governing universe equilibrium and to
predict much pertaining to universe stability. Practically, our
forecasts are reliable, but we are always confronted by certain forces
which are not wholly amenable to the laws of energy control and matter
behavior known to us. The predictability of all physical phenomena
becomes increasingly difficult as we proceed outward in the universes
from Paradise. As we pass beyond the borders of the personal
administration of the Paradise Rulers, we are confronted with increasing
inability to reckon in accordance with the standards established and
the experience acquired in connection with observations having
exclusively to do with the physical phenomena of the near-by astronomic
systems. Even in the realms of the seven superuniverses we are living in
the midst of force actions and energy reactions which pervade all our
domains and extend in unified equilibrium on through all regions of
outer space.(176.4)15:8.9 The farther
out we go, the more certainly we encounter those variational and
unpredictable phenomena which are so unerringly characteristic of the
unfathomable presence-performances of the Absolutes and the experiential
Deities. And these phenomena must be indicative of some universal
overcontrol of all things.(176.5)15:8.10 The
superuniverse of Orvonton is apparently now running down; the outer
universes seem to be winding up for unparalleled future activities; the
central Havona universe is eternally stabilized. Gravity and absence of
heat (cold) organize and hold matter together; heat and antigravity
disrupt matter and dissipate energy. The living power directors and
force organizers are the secret of the special control and intelligent
direction of the endless metamorphoses of universe making, unmaking, and
remaking. Nebulae may disperse, suns burn out, systems vanish, and
planets perish, but the universes do not run down.

9. Circuits of the Superuniverses

(176.6)15:9.1 The
universal circuits of Paradise do actually pervade the realms of the
seven superuniverses. These presence circuits are: the personality
gravity of the Universal Father, the spiritual gravity of the Eternal
Son, the mind gravity of the Conjoint Actor, and the material gravity of
the eternal Isle.(177.1)15:9.2 In addition
to the universal Paradise circuits and in addition to the
presence-performances of the Absolutes and the experiential Deities,
there function within the superuniverse space level only two
energy-circuit divisions or power segregations: the superuniverse
circuits and the local universe circuits.(177.2)15:9.3The Superuniverse Circuits:

(177.3)15:9.4 1. The
unifying intelligence circuit of one of the Seven Master Spirits of
Paradise. Such a cosmic-mind circuit is limited to a single
superuniverse.(177.4)15:9.5 2. The reflective-service circuit of the seven Reflective Spirits in each superuniverse.(177.5)15:9.6 3. The
secret circuits of the Mystery Monitors, in some manner interassociated
and routed by Divinington to the Universal Father on Paradise.(177.6)15:9.7 4. The circuit of the intercommunion of the Eternal Son with his Paradise Sons.(177.7)15:9.8 5. The flash presence of the Infinite Spirit.(177.8)15:9.9 6. The broadcasts of Paradise, the space reports of Havona.(177.9)15:9.10 7. The energy circuits of the power centers and the physical controllers.

(177.10)15:9.11The Local Universe Circuits:

(177.11)15:9.12 1. The
bestowal spirit of the Paradise Sons, the Comforter of the bestowal
worlds. The Spirit of Truth, the spirit of Michael on Urantia.(177.12)15:9.13 2. The circuit of the Divine Ministers, the local universe Mother Spirits, the Holy Spirit of your world.(177.13)15:9.14 3. The
intelligence-ministry circuit of a local universe, including the
diversely functioning presence of the adjutant mind-spirits.

(177.14)15:9.15 When
there develops such a spiritual harmony in a local universe that its
individual and combined circuits become indistinguishable from those of
the superuniverse, when such identity of function and oneness of
ministry actually prevail, then does the local universe immediately
swing into the settled circuits of light and life, becoming at once
eligible for admission into the spiritual confederation of the perfected
union of the supercreation. The requisites for admission to the
councils of the Ancients of Days, membership in the superuniverse
confederation, are:

(177.15)15:9.16 1. Physical Stability.
The stars and planets of a local universe must be in equilibrium; the
periods of immediate stellar metamorphosis must be over. The universe
must be proceeding on a clear track; its orbit must be safely and
finally settled.(177.16)15:9.17 2. Spiritual Loyalty.
There must exist a state of universal recognition of, and loyalty to,
the Sovereign Son of God who presides over the affairs of such a local
universe. There must have come into being a state of harmonious
co-operation between the individual planets, systems, and constellations
of the entire local universe.

(177.17)15:9.18 Your
local universe is not even reckoned as belonging to the settled physical
order of the superuniverse, much less as holding membership in the
recognized spiritual family of the supergovernment. Although Nebadon
does not yet have representation on Uversa, we of the superuniverse
government are dispatched to its worlds on special missions from time to
time, even as I have come to Urantia directly from Uversa. We lend
every possible assistance to your directors and rulers in the solution
of their difficult problems; we are desirous of seeing your universe
qualified for full admission into the associated creations of the
superuniverse family.

10. Rulers of the Superuniverses

(178.1)15:10.1 The
headquarters of the superuniverses are the seats of the high spiritual
government of the time-space domains. The executive branch of the
supergovernment, taking origin in the Councils of the Trinity, is
immediately directed by one of the Seven Master Spirits of supreme
supervision, beings who sit upon seats of Paradise authority and
administer the superuniverses through the Seven Supreme Executives
stationed on the seven special worlds of the Infinite Spirit, the
outermost satellites of Paradise.(178.2)15:10.2 The
superuniverse headquarters are the abiding places of the Reflective
Spirits and the Reflective Image Aids. From this midway position these
marvelous beings conduct their tremendous reflectivity operations, thus
ministering to the central universe above and to the local universes
below.(178.3)15:10.3 Each
superuniverse is presided over by three Ancients of Days, the joint
chief executives of the supergovernment. In its executive branch the
personnel of the superuniverse government consists of seven different
groups:

(178.4)15:10.4 1. Ancients of Days.(178.5)15:10.5 2. Perfectors of Wisdom.(178.6)15:10.6 3. Divine Counselors.(178.7)15:10.7 4. Universal Censors.(178.8)15:10.8 5. Mighty Messengers.(178.9)15:10.9 6. Those High in Authority.(178.10)15:10.10 7. Those without Name and Number.

(178.11)15:10.11 The
three Ancients of Days are immediately assisted by a corps of one
billion Perfectors of Wisdom, with whom are associated three billion
Divine Counselors. One billion Universal Censors are attached to each
superuniverse administration. These three groups are Co-ordinate Trinity
Personalities, taking origin directly and divinely in the Paradise
Trinity.(178.12)15:10.12 The
remaining three orders, Mighty Messengers, Those High in Authority, and
Those without Name and Number, are glorified ascendant mortals. The
first of these orders came up through the ascendant regime and passed
through Havona in the days of Grandfanda. Having attained Paradise, they
were mustered into the Corps of the Finality, embraced by the Paradise
Trinity, and subsequently assigned to the supernal service of the
Ancients of Days. As a class, these three orders are known as Trinitized
Sons of Attainment, being of dual origin but now of Trinity service.
Thus was the executive branch of the superuniverse government enlarged
to include the glorified and perfected children of the evolutionary
worlds.(178.13)15:10.13 The
co-ordinate council of the superuniverse is composed of the seven
executive groups previously named and the following sector rulers and
other regional overseers:

(179.1)15:10.14 1. Perfections of Days — the rulers of the superuniverse major sectors.(179.2)15:10.15 2. Recents of Days — the directors of the superuniverse minor sectors.(179.3)15:10.16 3. Unions of Days — the Paradise advisers to the rulers of the local universes.(179.4)15:10.17 4. Faithfuls of Days — the Paradise counselors to the Most High rulers of the constellation governments.(179.5)15:10.18 5. Trinity Teacher Sons who may chance to be on duty at superuniverse headquarters.(179.6)15:10.19 6. Eternals of Days who may happen to be present at superuniverse headquarters.(179.7)15:10.20 7. The
seven Reflective Image Aids — the spokesmen of the seven Reflective
Spirits and through them representatives of the Seven Master Spirits of
Paradise.

(179.8)15:10.21 The
Reflective Image Aids also function as the representatives of numerous
groups of beings who are influential in the superuniverse governments,
but who are not, at present, for various reasons, fully active in their
individual capacities. Embraced within this group are: the evolving
superuniverse personality manifestation of the Supreme Being, the
Unqualified Supervisors of the Supreme, the Qualified Vicegerents of the
Ultimate, the unnamed liaison reflectivators of Majeston, and the
superpersonal spirit representatives of the Eternal Son.(179.9)15:10.22 At
almost all times it is possible to find representatives of all groups of
created beings on the headquarters worlds of the superuniverses. The
routine ministering work of the superuniverses is performed by the
mighty seconaphim and by other members of the vast family of the
Infinite Spirit. In the work of these marvelous centers of superuniverse
administration, control, ministry, and executive judgment, the
intelligences of every sphere of universal life are mingled in effective
service, wise administration, loving ministry, and just judgment.(179.10)15:10.23 The
superuniverses do not maintain any sort of ambassadorial representation;
they are completely isolated from each other. They know of mutual
affairs only through the Paradise clearinghouse maintained by the Seven
Master Spirits. Their rulers work in the councils of divine wisdom for
the welfare of their own superuniverses regardless of what may be
transpiring in other sections of the universal creation. This isolation
of the superuniverses will persist until such time as their
co-ordination is achieved by the more complete factualization of the
personality-sovereignty of the evolving experiential Supreme Being.

11. The Deliberative Assembly

(179.11)15:11.1 It is on
such worlds as Uversa that the beings representative of the autocracy
of perfection and the democracy of evolution meet face to face. The
executive branch of the supergovernment originates in the realms of
perfection; the legislative branch springs from the flowering of the
evolutionary universes.(179.12)15:11.2 The
deliberative assembly of the superuniverse is confined to the
headquarters world. This legislative or advisory council consists of
seven houses, to each of which every local universe admitted to the
superuniverse councils elects a native representative. These
representatives are chosen by the high councils of such local universes
from among the ascending-pilgrim graduates of Orvonton who are tarrying
on Uversa, accredited for transport to Havona. The average term of
service is about one hundred years of superuniverse standard time.(180.1)15:11.3 Never
have I known of a disagreement between the Orvonton executives and the
Uversa assembly. Never yet, in the history of our superuniverse, has the
deliberative body ever passed a recommendation that the executive
division of the supergovernment has even hesitated to carry out. There
always has prevailed the most perfect harmony and working agreement, all
of which testifies to the fact that evolutionary beings can really
attain the heights of perfected wisdom which qualifies them to consort
with the personalities of perfect origin and divine nature. The presence
of the deliberative assemblies on the superuniverse headquarters
reveals the wisdom, and foreshadows the ultimate triumph, of the whole
vast evolutionary concept of the Universal Father and his Eternal Son.

12. The Supreme Tribunals

(180.2)15:12.1 When we
speak of executive and deliberative branches of the Uversa government,
you may, from the analogy of certain forms of Urantian civil government,
reason that we must have a third or judicial branch, and we do; but it
does not have a separate personnel. Our courts are constituted as
follows: There presides, in accordance with the nature and gravity of
the case, an Ancient of Days, a Perfector of Wisdom, or a Divine
Counselor. The evidence for or against an individual, a planet, system,
constellation, or universe is presented and interpreted by the Censors.
The defense of the children of time and the evolutionary planets is
offered by the Mighty Messengers, the official observers of the
superuniverse government to the local universes and systems. The
attitude of the higher government is portrayed by Those High in
Authority. And ordinarily the verdict is formulated by a varying-sized
commission consisting equally of Those without Name and Number and a
group of understanding personalities chosen from the deliberative
assembly.(180.3)15:12.2 The
courts of the Ancients of Days are the high review tribunals for the
spiritual adjudication of all component universes. The Sovereign Sons of
the local universes are supreme in their own domains; they are subject
to the supergovernment only in so far as they voluntarily submit matters
for counsel or adjudication by the Ancients of Days except in matters
involving the extinction of will creatures. Mandates of judgment
originate in the local universes, but sentences involving the extinction
of will creatures are always formulated on, and executed from, the
headquarters of the superuniverse. The Sons of the local universes can
decree the survival of mortal man, but only the Ancients of Days may sit
in executive judgment on the issues of eternal life and death.(180.4)15:12.3 In all
matters not requiring trial, the submission of evidence, the Ancients of
Days or their associates render decisions, and these rulings are always
unanimous. We are here dealing with the councils of perfection. There
are no disagreements nor minority opinions in the decrees of these
supreme and superlative tribunals.(180.5)15:12.4 With
certain few exceptions the supergovernments exercise jurisdiction over
all things and all beings in their respective domains. There is no
appeal from the rulings and decisions of the superuniverse authorities
since they represent the concurred opinions of the Ancients of Days and
that Master Spirit who, from Paradise, presides over the destiny of the
superuniverse concerned.

13. The Sector Governments

(181.1)15:13.1 A major sector
comprises about one tenth of a superuniverse and consists of one
hundred minor sectors, ten thousand local universes, about one hundred
billion inhabitable worlds. These major sectors are administered by
three Perfections of Days, Supreme Trinity Personalities.(181.2)15:13.2 The
courts of the Perfections of Days are constituted much as are those of
the Ancients of Days except that they do not sit in spiritual judgment
upon the realms. The work of these major sector governments has chiefly
to do with the intellectual status of a far-flung creation. The major
sectors detain, adjudicate, dispense, and tabulate, for reporting to the
courts of the Ancients of Days, all matters of superuniverse importance
of a routine and administrative nature which are not immediately
concerned with the spiritual administration of the realms or with the
outworking of the mortal-ascension plans of the Paradise Rulers. The
personnel of a major sector government is no different from that of the
superuniverse.(181.3)15:13.3 As the
magnificent satellites of Uversa are concerned with your final spiritual
preparation for Havona, so are the seventy satellites of Umajor the
fifth devoted to your superuniverse intellectual training and
development. From all Orvonton, here are gathered together the wise
beings who labor untiringly to prepare the mortals of time for their
further progress towards the career of eternity. Most of this training
of ascending mortals is conducted on the seventy study worlds.(181.4)15:13.4 The minor sector
governments are presided over by three Recents of Days. Their
administration is concerned mainly with the physical control,
unification, stabilization, and routine co-ordination of the
administration of the component local universes. Each minor sector
embraces as many as one hundred local universes, ten thousand
constellations, one million systems, or about one billion inhabitable
worlds.(181.5)15:13.5 Minor
sector headquarters worlds are the grand rendezvous of the Master
Physical Controllers. These headquarters worlds are surrounded by the
seven instruction spheres which constitute the entrance schools of the
superuniverse and are the centers of training for physical and
administrative knowledge concerning the universe of universes.(181.6)15:13.6 The
administrators of the minor sector governments are under the immediate
jurisdiction of the major sector rulers. The Recents of Days receive all
reports of observations and co-ordinate all recommendations which come
up to a superuniverse from the Unions of Days who are stationed as
Trinity observers and advisers on the headquarters spheres of the local
universes and from the Faithfuls of Days who are similarly attached to
the councils of the Most Highs at the headquarters of the
constellations. All such reports are transmitted to the Perfections of
Days on the major sectors, subsequently to be passed on to the courts of
the Ancients of Days. Thus the Trinity regime extends from the
constellations of the local universes up to the headquarters of the
superuniverse. The local system headquarters do not have Trinity
representatives.

14. Purposes of the Seven Superuniverses

(181.7)15:14.1 There are
seven major purposes which are being unfolded in the evolution of the
seven superuniverses. Each major purpose in superuniverse evolution will
find fullest expression in only one of the seven superuniverses, and
therefore does each superuniverse have a special function and a unique
nature.(182.1)15:14.2 Orvonton,
the seventh superuniverse, the one to which your local universe
belongs, is known chiefly because of its tremendous and lavish bestowal
of merciful ministry to the mortals of the realms. It is renowned for
the manner in which justice prevails as tempered by mercy and power
rules as conditioned by patience, while the sacrifices of time are
freely made to secure the stabilization of eternity. Orvonton is a
universe demonstration of love and mercy.(182.2)15:14.3 It is,
however, very difficult to describe our conception of the true nature of
the evolutionary purpose which is unfolding in Orvonton, but it may be
suggested by saying that in this supercreation we feel that the six
unique purposes of cosmic evolution as manifested in the six associated
supercreations are here being interassociated into a
meaning-of-the-whole; and it is for this reason that we have sometimes
conjectured that the evolved and finished personalization of God the
Supreme will in the remote future and from Uversa rule the perfected
seven superuniverses in all the experiential majesty of his then
attained almighty sovereign power.(182.3)15:14.4 As
Orvonton is unique in nature and individual in destiny, so also is each
of its six associated superuniverses. A great deal that is going on in
Orvonton is not, however, revealed to you, and of these unrevealed
features of Orvonton life, many are to find most complete expression in
some other superuniverse. The seven purposes of superuniverse evolution
are operative throughout all seven superuniverses, but each
supercreation will give fullest expression to only one of these
purposes. To understand more about these superuniverse purposes, much
that you do not understand would have to be revealed, and even then you
would comprehend but little. This entire narrative presents only a
fleeting glimpse of the immense creation of which your world and local
system are a part.(182.4)15:14.5 Your
world is called Urantia, and it is number 606 in the planetary group, or
system, of Satania. This system has at present 619 inhabited worlds,
and more than two hundred additional planets are evolving favorably
toward becoming inhabited worlds at some future time.(182.5)15:14.6 Satania
has a headquarters world called Jerusem, and it is system number
twenty-four in the constellation of Norlatiadek. Your constellation,
Norlatiadek, consists of one hundred local systems and has a
headquarters world called Edentia. Norlatiadek is number seventy in the
universe of Nebadon. The local universe of Nebadon consists of one
hundred constellations and has a capital known as Salvington. The
universe of Nebadon is number eighty-four in the minor sector of Ensa.(182.6)15:14.7 The minor
sector of Ensa consists of one hundred local universes and has a
capital called Uminor the third. This minor sector is number three in
the major sector of Splandon. Splandon consists of one hundred minor
sectors and has a headquarters world called Umajor the fifth. It is the
fifth major sector of the superuniverse of Orvonton, the seventh segment
of the grand universe. Thus you can locate your planet in the scheme of
the organization and administration of the universe of universes.(182.7)15:14.8 The grand
universe number of your world, Urantia, is 5,342,482,337,666. That is
the registry number on Uversa and on Paradise, your number in the
catalogue of the inhabited worlds. I know the physical-sphere registry
number, but it is of such an extraordinary size that it is of little
practical significance to the mortal mind.(183.1)15:14.9 Your
planet is a member of an enormous cosmos; you belong to a well-nigh
infinite family of worlds, but your sphere is just as precisely
administered and just as lovingly fostered as if it were the only
inhabited world in all existence.(183.2)15:14.10 [Presented by a Universal Censor hailing from Uversa.]